Glass 
Book 



AN 

ESSAY 

ON 

IMMORTALITY. 



AN 



ESSAY 



ON 



IMMORTALITY. 



" Now my co-mates, and brothers in exile, 
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 
Than that of painted pomp? —Are not these woods 

More free from peril than the envious court ? 

******** 
******** 

Sweet are the uses of adversity ; 

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 1 

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head : 

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 

Sermons in a|ones^id-^5bd in every thing." 

BY THE AUTHOR OF A REVIEW OF FIRST PRINCIPLES OF BISHO? 
BERKELEY, DR. RELD, AND PROFESSOR STEWART. 



LONDON : 

Printed by D. Cock and Co. 75 Dean-street, Soho ; 

FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME AND BROWN, 
NOSTER-ROW ; AND BLACK AND PARRY, 
LEADENH ALL-STREET. 



1814 



PREFACE. 



The subject of the following speculation, 
is the moral argument for the immortality 
of man. 

The popular moral argument in favor of 
a future state, is grounded on the unequal 
distribution of hu man happiness ; and, with 
regard to it, the following remarks appear to 
be warranted. 

First, — That it is not progressive; or, 
does not encrease in strength, with the ge- 
neral encrease of knowledge. 

Secondly,— That, though it is encourag- 
ing to a considerable degree, it is yet, how- 
ever, open to sceptical objections of some 
weight ; to overcome which must be highly 
desirable. 

Thirdly, — That any moral argument in 
favor of a future state, can be ^ood only 
upon the supposition of a good Governor 
of the World: but the one in question (be- 



vi PREFACE. 

sides the last mentioned defect) grounds its 
hope upon human misery ; which fact, of 
human misery, serves the Sceptic, and the 
Atheist, with their strongest objection 
against the supposition of any good Gover- 
nor. 

Thus, the existing moral argument, drawn 
from the Human Species, is not only defective 
in the eyes of some of those who profess to 
believe in a Deity ; but, what is worse, the 
stronger it pleads its own cause, the stronger 
it urges the objection of the Atheist, and 
so defeats its own purpose whenever it at- 
tempts to eradicate infidelity. 

Over and above these specified defects 
in the existing argument, I suppose, on ge- 
neral ground, that it must be in the highest 
degree estimable, had we any well founded 
advance made in the subject. 

What circumstances have led me to pre- 
sume in the matter; and whether any advance 
has been made ; will appear in the Sequel, 



CONTENTS* 



PART I. 

Page 

Sect. I. — The Preliminary general Argument 1 
Sect. II. — Of Considerations which tend to pre- 
vent a general Comparison of Human Life 
with Instinctive Life ----- 44 

Sect. III. — Of Considerations which have ope- 
rated upon those who have noticed the Com- 
parative Fact, and prevented them from ap- 
plying it - - - - - - - 90 

I Sect. IV.— A Test of the Ground of the present 
moral Argument, — -and a general Reason for 
the Probation of Man - - - -123 

PART II. 

Sect. 1.— The illustrative Moral Argument ; con- 
taining a Comparison of the two Orders of 
Minds 186 

Sect. II. — Continuation and Conclusion of the il- 
lustrative Moral Argument - 229 



PART III. 

Sect. I. — Of a due Estimate of the Happiness, or 

Misery, of civilised Man - 285 

Sect. II. — Of the Proximate Design of creating 
Man, as an order contradistinguished from 
Brutes - - - 304 



AN 



ESSAY 

ON 

IMMORTALITY. 

SECTION FIRST. 

THE PRELIMINARY GENERAL ARGUMENT* 

THE speculation now offered to the reader, 
is entertained owing to an apprehension that 
the ordinary moral argument in favor of a fu- 
ture state is not near so general or philoso- 
phical as the Nature of things seems capable 
to admit. 

If this conception be well founded, it be- 
comes the more important, considering that 
the usual field of speculation on this sub- ] 
ject, does not appear to promise any stronger 
indication than what has been long and po- 
pularly recognised ; and considering also 3 ' 

B 



2 AN ESSAY £Sect. L 

that while the growth of moral evidence seems 
thus unprogressive, it certainly has not hi- 
therto produced either a general unanimity 
of opinion among men, or even a suffici- 
ently confident reliance in all those who in- 
cline to rest upon it. 

"Man is born unto trouble as the 

flame flies upward." — — This much 

worn truth has been registered in the bosoms 
of a long succession of human millions, and 
^as been often and pathetically the theme 
of the best and wisest men in every age. 
But though the fact is so generally acknow- 
ledged, as to be equally beyond contest and 
above illustration, it is not to be asserted 
without a grateful acknowledgment, that 
there is also much good in human life- 
There is indeed so much good already dif- 
fused among mankind, and so much more 
appears possibly attainable, that, upon a 
view of the whole species, (which we are to 
remark, is the most extensive view usually 



Sect. 1.2 ON IMMORTALITY. 3 

taken) perhaps we cannot form any reason- 
able expectation of a future state, but are 
left in all the darkness of ignorance. 

The prospect being thus obscure upon 
the last mentioned general ground, men have 
naturally been determined to what appears 
the next prominent consideration ; and this 
is found to be the inequality with which 
the whole sum of existing human good is 
divided among the individuals of our spe- 
cies. — This last indeed is a very striking 
truth, which comes home to every bosom ; 
and perhaps no persuasion arises more natu- 
rally, than that an intelligent and good Go- 
vernor of the world, would not permit the in- 
justice, or the hardships, which fall upon the 
innocent and the virtuous, without making 
some provision for the sufferers. 

But reasonable as this opinion may seem,, 
there arises, from the nature of things, 
a consideration which may somewhat dis- 
countenance it. The evil in question, though 
b 2 



6 * AN ESSAY [Sect. I. 

very hard, and indeed very extensive, is how- 
ever but a partial consideration : and such is 
the utility of general laws in Nature, that 
it may be supposed fit, that individuals 
should be liable to suffer accidental ills in- 
volved by these causes of general good, even 
though no after provision were made for the 

sufferers. — It is obvious, that to make 

good and evil fall presently upon desert, 
there would need be a continual succession 
of violations of general laws, or a confusion, 
the consequences of which are incalculable; 
and from this consideration, many persons 
may incline to fear, that we have no very 
strong ground of hope from the inequality 
of human happiness, any more than from the 
state of the species upon the whole. 

One thing, at any rate, is here very mani- ' 
fest, which is, that whatever strength the last 
mentioned argument really possesses, (and 
though I consider it very encouraging even 
by itself) we must confess it rests wholly 



Sect. I.} ON IMMORTALITY. 5 

upon particulars and accidentals, not upon es- 
sentials. Therefore, though it should be 
considered good, so far as it goes, it does not 
extend to such a base as lies beyond the ob- 
jection drawn from the utility of general 

laws. Now it is in consequence of 

marking this narrowness of the ordinary 
foundation, that I am led to propose here 
a very different field, which, in the course of 
some experience, has appeared to me as af- 
fording a comparison of much more general 
extent. 

In entering upon the preparatory discus- 
sion, it may not be amiss to state, that the 
subject before us is intended to come home 
to every class of readers, and will contain 
nothing but what I trust may be both un- 
derstood and appreciated by all; unless 
indeed it may be a very little of what is now 
immediately to follow in this preliminary ] 
part. The ordinary reader, or thinker, 
therefore may consider himself qualified as 



'4 AN ESSAY [[Sect. L 

a juror, in regard of the^eweraZ /ac£ that is 
herein to be illustrated by a variety of parti- 
culars, which he may compare with his own 
experience: and we will respectfully look 
to the learned to sanction the principle 
upon which its application is grounded.— — - 
This notice, 1 confess, is entered here, to 
prevent some readers from being alarmed 
at the very little there is which wears the 
uninviting aspect of metaphysical specula- 
tion. But, to resume. 

The general laws of Nature just now men- 
tioned, are not all of one system, but of se- 
veral, which differ vastly in their nature: 
therefore, without speculating upon the con- 
tinual interruption, or confusion, of any ot 
these, we may compare them, that is to say, 
one system with another, and draw reason- 
able inferences, or opinions, therefrom. 

For this last mentioned purpose, the first 
or greatest distinction to be made, seems to 
be, that of two systems of laws in Nature, 



Sect. I J ON IMMORTALITY. ? 

which are, the laws of body, and the laws of 
mind. — These two we know, differ most es- 
sentially; and it is to the mental code that 
we owe all those moral evils, whose amount 
makes such a vast sum, in addition to the 
sum of natural evils. Besides this, a great 
part of natural evil itself is mental, being 
comprised in the provinces of foresight and 
retrospect. — And farther, of that part of na- 
tural evil ^which originates with body, (inani- 
mate and animate) a part may perhaps be 
likewise referred to mental laws. —Thus 
we see how very great is the total amount 
of human miseries arising, one way or another, 
from the laws of mind. 

But if now we turn, and contemplate 
mental laws, we shall be presented with 
the view of a very grand provision in them* 
to which there is no arrangement in the laws 
of body that bear any parallel, or analogy. 

-The laws of body are the same to all 
known todies.— But the laws of mind are not 



t I AN ESSAY ' £3ect. I. 

the same to all known minds, The num- 
ber of minds which sensibly occupy this 
Earth are of two kinds, or, are governed by 

TWO VERY DIFFERENT CODES OF LAWS, which 

may, upon inquiry, be found productive of f 
as different degrees of happiness to their re- 
spective subjects, 

Now, upon the first blush, this difference 
must be confessed highly remarkable. — The 
very existence of two orders of minds, in- 
dicates two final causes as widely different 
as the codes which govern them : and, be- 
sides this first conjecture arising from such 
difference in structure, we seem to be 
strongly invited to compare the present earth- 
ly happiness arising from each, and draw 

farther conjectures from the result. 

But we seem to be still more strongly solicited 
to this by observing, that there is no such 
diversity of systems in the vast fabrick of 

INANIMATE CREATION. 

Man forms only one order, in a count- 



Sect. I/3 ON IMMORTALITY. 9 

less variety of sensitive beings which enliven 
this Earth : and, while he stands thus pecu- 
liar in the endowment of moral reason, it 
is grandly significant, that all the innumera- 
ble other sorts of animal life form together 
but one order : they are all very closely as- 
sociated links of one chain ; nor is there 
any intermediate link, betwixt them and us, 
to confound our distinct reasonings upon 
each. 

Animal man, indeed, is usually treated in 
the relation which his organic structure 
bears to those of other animals, and he is 
therein considered as a proper link in one 
continued chain of animate beings.— Upon 
this classification I think Lord Bolingbroke 
coolly remarks to the following effect ; that 
it would not obtain, were it not that men 
differ from brutes more in the structure of 
their bodies, than their minds. But, though 
indeed there is a similarity in some features 

of mental structure, (which obviously fa re- 

c 



. 10 AN ESSAY £Sect. I. 

quisite for the common property of animal 
existence,) we may very safely assert that the 
above mentioned classification is preposte- 
rous, or absurd in regard of the subject now 
in hand. 

' The structure of the human mind, (as 
known by its various operations) differs im- 
mensely from that of the highest brute : and 
( this not in degree only, but in kind. And 
besides this, the two orders of minds differ 
no less remarkably in another grand point, 
which is, that instinctive beings are in- 
finitely various, and are formed upon a gra- 
duated scale, while, on the contrary, all 
human minds are of one equal structure. 

With regard to the essential difference be- 
tween the two orders of minds, it may be 
sufficient here to notice two or three provin- 
ces of human mental operation. Let us 

take but moral cogitation, and the rela- 
tions of sensible things. There are no 
offices in any instinctive mind, which corre- 



Sect. 10 0N IMMORTALITY. ' 11 

spond to these. — But if we farther take, the 
conception, and contemplation, of an invisible 
order of things, a CREATOR, and an here- 
after, we must be satisfied that no instinc- 
tive mind is formed for any such operations. 

Will any man, then, attempt to hook 

the rational code upon the instinctive one, 
and pronounce them two links of one chain, 
that is, in effect, one code of mental laws ? 

From even so instantaneous a glance at 
the two structures, it must appear highly 
evident, that when GOD made man, he did 
not intend him for a head link of mere ani- 
mal life; for, in that case, we might have 
been included in the instinctive code, and 
thus divested of very important mental offices 
which affect the happiness of mere animal 
existence. — Contrary to this, man was made 
not merely a different animal; but a different 
order of minds ; insomuch, that the grand 
instinctive code, though it embraces innume- 
rable different gradations of minds, could not 
c 2 



19 ' AN ESSAY, QSect. I. 

serve for him, and a far more noble and ex- 
tensive System of laws exists for his peculiar 
government. — Of this system it maybe enough 
to say, here, that embracing man's possible 
attainments, it comprehends his knowledge, 
his elections, — and his acts ; and, that it 
appears to be an institution made in direct cor- \ 
respondence with the general nature of 
things, a correspondence which is certainly 
very different from that which brutes can 
have with the external world, and therefore, 
even of itself considered apart from our pre- 
sent subject, highly flattering to our hope of 
permanent existence. 

Here then is a most extensive, and I sup- 
pose a truly philosophical field of compari- j 
son; and instead of being limited to compare 
the accidental miseries of one man, with the 
accidental happiness of another, (both indivi- 
duals of one order, and liable to the acci- 
dents involved by the general laws which re- 
gulate this order,) the inquirer is now called 



Sect. 1.3 ON IMMORTALITY. IS 

to attend to what is more general, or es- 
sential. — He will therefore turn from com- 
paring human nature ivith itself, and proceed 
to contrast one kind of minds with another 
kind, in regard of the happiness resulting 
in this life from the constitution of each. 
And if upon so doing it be found, that the 
advantage lies with instinctive life, then 
every one who believes in the existence of a 
good Governor of the world, must take his 
goodness as their sure pledge that he would 
not have laid the greater load of miseries 
upon the far nobler order of beings, had 
these beings been intended for no other than } 
a mere earthly existence. 

Perhaps no man could reasonably desire 
a stronger indication than such. But, we 
are never to overlook that highly encouraging 
collateral fact which wants no proof, that the 
human mind is formed to take continued de- 
light in contemplating the endless works of 
its great CREATOR ; — that, if it were 



U AN ESSAY [Sect, L 

' united to a vehicle whose demands were less 
mean, it might be continually blest by such 
employments as we must suppose befitting 
angels ; — and, in short, that reason, if less 
fit for this life, is far more fit for a higher 
sphere of action than that we now occupy. 

From what has now been advanced, it 
will appear to be my opinion, that we really 
possess such very reasonable ground of ex- 
pectation, as this extended field of compari- 
son can contain. To show that we do so, is 
indeed the object of the present undertaking ; 
and the subsequent sections of the Essay are 
intended to illustrate or prove the general 

fact, by a variety of particulars. If this 

view of the subject is an unusual one, it will 
however be naturally accounted for, by stat- 
ing the circumstances which gave rise to my 
taking it up, these being perhaps equally un- 
usual. — Accident, which brings us upon so 
many new truths and opinions, has subjected 
to my actual observation in various parts of 



sect. tr\ ON IMMORTALITY/ 15 

the world, a pretty extensive view of free ani- 
mal life, under circumstances certainly very 
favourable to such a comparison as we are 

now considering. Had this experience 

been limited to any one district or country, 
I think it probable, it might not have led me 
to a serious comparison, any more than such 
an extent of observation seems to do with 
people in general : but the local diversity of 
situations in which the facts have come un- 
der my view, has awakened the consideration 
of generality in this matter ; and the ex- 
tent of the whole has impressed my imagi- 
nation much more deeply, than I think is 
likely to follow upon a man's observing only 
a small part of animal nature, and reading 
accounts of all the other parts. — — —If this 
be not admitted to give any pretension to 
the subject, 1 freely confess I have none that 
is higher: and, as it has been openly 
avowed that accident, (or at least other pur- 
suits than the one in question) led me into 



16 AN ESSAY £Sect. t 

the situations which afforded this solitary 
advantage, it obviously lays claim to no 
merit, therefore the mention of it must be 
considered no boast. — The only merit claim- 
ed, is in the endeavour to make what I con- 
sider to be ; a very important and beneficial 
application of the facts which accident has 
thrown in my way.- To this it may be 
proper to add, that I have not made the ap- 
plication, or embraced the conclusions which 
will appear in the sequel, without seriously 
weighing the evidence, and considering its 
principal bearings, to the best of my judg- 
ment : neither should I have rested satisfied 
in this, so long as I investigated the subject 
by my own sole reflection ; but, trust I may 
be so, since it will appear, that my view, 
however unusual, is far from being singular, 
or unsupported. 

As the simplest outline of the principle 
upon which the general argumentisgrounded, j 



Sect. V] ON IMMORTALITY. 17 

I begin by siding with those writers who, in 
treating the subject by the separate light of 
Nature, consider man to be in a stale of pro- 
bation: — To which we must, of course, add 
that he is also in a condition of frail, or- 
ganic, animal existence. In this case, 

therefore, a portion of natural evil must be 
thought fit and unavoidable, and moral evil 
is unavoidably permitted as being involved 
by the accountable agency of man. But, I 
have already remarked, that a great propor- 
tion of human natural evil is mental, espe- 
cially as arising in foresight and retrospect; 
and therefore it (as well as moral evil,) is 
chargeable to the endoivment called reason. 

Now ivhen to the whole of moral evil 

(corporeal and mental) is added that moiety 

Of NATURAL evil which flows from REASON 

excited by natural agents, it makes the sum 
total of rational ills, beyond all proportion. 

greater than our mere animal ills. So 

great indeed seems the excess here, that if 



18 AN ESSAY £Sect. I. 

we strike off all the various evils arising* from 
reason ; and thus reduce mans mind to an 
equality of thinking with that of an instinc- 
tive animal of the middling degree; we 
shall find by very far the greater part of the 
whole burden of human miseries thrown away.. 
——If this were clone, the question that 
would then remain would be, as to the cata- 
logue of human pleasures thereby lost, and 
those retained. And herein, I imagine, and 
shall endeavour to show, we should retain 
those which the mass of mankind, by the un- 
deniable test of their constant practice, prove 
to be the most solid, stveet, or desireabte. 

But the gift of rationality is not therefore 
the less noble, or desirable, though its earth- 
ly effects appear thus unhappy ; it could be 
so considered only, if supposed the endow- 
ment of a mere earthly being. If man's 
estate is that of probation, then, moral elec- 
tions — and a knowledge or contemplation of 
past and future,— seem absolutely necessary 



. Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 19- 

to his trial. But these two last are the 

grand sources of almost the whole mass of 
human miseries : and, since without them 
we could not so much as argue our eligi- 
bility for a future state, the evils that flow 
from them appear desirable, even upon the 
very lowest estimate. -The highest es- 
timate, on the other hand, affords far more 
than a bare eligibility in the structure of our 
minds; for, beyond this, it would appear 
that the grand aggregate of actual human 
sufferings (natural and moral, corporeal and 
intellectual) is vastly greater than is good, 
or than need have been, for a mere earthly ex- 
istence : — But the grand consideration of 

all, in the present argument is, that we are 
not here left to doubtful conjecture, or to an 
unphilosophical speculation upon an unex- 
ampled state of existence ; for, if the follow- 
ing induction be established, we have actual 
evidence in proof, by the very different state 

of a different order of beings, existing in 
D 2 



20 AN ESSAY [[Sect. I. 

Nature before oar eyes, as examples of animal 
happiness which GOD might have bestowed 
upon man, in an equal, or a somewhat greater 
degree, had he not, for some high purpose, 
judged fit to bestow upon us the GIFT OF 
REASON. — This gift has been bestowed, 
and has produced correspondent effects on 
our present happiness : therefore this last evi- 
dence leaves us no room to doubt of the 
DESIGN of creating rational beings here ; 

— and HUMAN SUFFERINGS, COMPARED 

with instinctive life, thus become to us 

the SIGN. The moral pledge in the 

goodness of GOD, that our earthly state is 
burdened with great evil, only as preparatory 
for a far greater good. 

Thus we find, the same gift of reason, 
which brings to us, by two grand sources, a 
vast tide of various evils, contains also the 
source of Hope,— that is, of a rational expec- 
tation which much more than counterpoises 
all the miseries we suffer, and leaves the pre- 



Sect, lj ON IMMORTALITY. 2f ] 

ponderance 011 the side of happiness, even 
here ; — a satisfactory reliance, which we 
gain, by a due exercise of this same reason, 
upon the phenomena of sensitive Nature; 
not confined to views of oar oiun species, 
(which at the greatest can be but particular) 
but more philosophically extended to the 
full scale of known animal existences. 

As I am rrot aware that any one has pre- 
ceded me in the same extent of view ; and 
certainly it is a field which has not yet been 
cultivated, so as to produce a beneficial or 
popular argument in favor of a future state ; 
I might justly fear the magnitude of the at- 
tempt, especially since the subject has in all 
ages occupied the attention of mankind, and 
is one in what the means of a moral argument 
may have been considered as almost equally 
efficient at all times. But, fortunately, 
while there appear various and powerfu 1 
reasons why the great comparative fact, here- 



82 " AN ESSAY [[Sect t 

in, has been overlooked, in ordinary ;— and 
still stronger reasons why it has not been ap- 
plied by the philosophic few who have noticed 
it; (two important considerations which I 
shall have occasion to treat) it will at least 
be manifested that 1 do not stand alone as 
to the fact. 

Complaints against the actual eviis of ra- 
tionality are almost innumerable : but these 
can only make up a side of the question. 
They can lead to no conclusion. — It is the 
comparative fact alone that must determine 
us. But now, in regard of this last, a con- 
currence, or rather an anticipation of my 
opinion, is to be found in authors of the high- 
est rank of moral, intellectual, and literary 
reputation ; an agreement which doubtless 
will place my ground above many trifling • 
cavils which otherwise possibly might be 
started by persons of limited viewsv and 
which, therefore, I shall place in front of my 
position. — The extracts from these, which 



Sect. ir\ ON IMMORTALITY. IS 

will be placed before the reader, will, I trust, 
be fully sufficient to satisfy him (if he be un- 
willing to judge for himself) that my views 
are not singular, nor taken upon slight 
ground. — At the same time it may be farther 
satisfactory to him, as it is to me, to know 
that I could not have been biassed by these 
authorities^ because I was unacquainted with 
them when my own opinion was originally 
formedv 4 — In stating this, however, I would 
not omit to confess, with due respect to 
those great names, that such an agreement 
affords me a confidence, which no man ought 
to have in his own single judgment, especi- 
ally on a point of such deep and general in- 
terest to his species. 

In referring to authority, perhaps, 1 could 
not begin more unexceptionably, than with 
the sentiments of Archbishop King, in con- 
currence with those of his illustrious com- 
mentator, Mr. Laiv, afterwards Bishop of 
Carlisle.— — The main object of the " Essay 



«•! AN ESSAY [[Sect. L 

0# Origin of Evil," is to account for 
Evil, consistently with the wisdom and good- 
ness of GOD : Therefore, the greater the 
proportion of human misery, the more diffi- 
cult must have been the author's undertak- 
ing, — In the progress of the work, w e ac- 
cordingly find, it was a great object to argue 
the good of reason, and even a good above 
reason. And, upon the whole, we can have 
no doubt, that every thing therein either ex- 
pressed, or implied, to the disadvantage of 
human life, was yielded with caution, and 
with real reluctance, as was equally requi- 
site for the success, and becoming the high 

office, of the writer. We are at the same 

time to remember, that the general concur- 
rence of his commentator renders this a two- 
old authority of the most desirable kind. 

]Now Archbishop King had so little to say, 
positively, in favor of the gift of reason, that 
he assumed and laboured at large to prove, 
that man has a poiuer which would seem to 



Sect. I/] ON IMMORTALITY. 25 

me as if independent on reason ; that is, a 
power of " being pleased with objects only 
" because he chooses them." — Among the vari- 
ous illustrations of the nature of this won- 
derful gift, he says, (Oct. Edit. 3 : Page 338) 
" Since this power is supposed of such a na- 
" ture as can please itself, in its act, wherever 
V it can exert that act it can also please itself 
" even in opposition to the natural appetites, 
"the senses and reason." — Again, in Page 
" 346 he goes on thus, " I think it is evident 
" thatGod hasgivenus aprinciple of this kind, 
" and that our Will is only determined by it- 
" self. They are mistaken therefore who 
" affirm that either the appetites, passions, 
" or understanding, determine elections." 

Farther on, Page 388, the author sums up 
thus, " For in the sixth place, it is most ma- 
" nifest that the greatest good, and that where-* 
" by man excels other animals, is owing to li- 
" berty. By the assistance of this we rise 
" above fate ? and when attacked from with- 

E 



26 ? AN ESSAY £Sect. I. 

" out by adverse fortune, we find our happi- 
" ness within ourselves. Other animals have 
"nothing to oppose to a distemper, death, or 
s< pain ; nothing to delight themselves in ex- 
" cept sleep, food, and the appetite of pro- 
4< pagating their species. But a free agent 
" in the midst of pains and torments, of hun- 
"ger and thirst, nay death itself, has where- 
" withal to please itself, and to blunt the edge 
" of all these evils." 

Now for my own part, I have deeply to la- 
ment that I possess no such power of making 
myself happy as that here described, except 1 
it be in the hope of futurity ; which, be it ob- 
served, I did not first elect without reason, 
and afterivard cherish because I chose it; but 
only hope it, because my reason makes me ex- 
pect it is some sweet or happy state.- The 

object, however, of quoting this passage, is 
to make it highly evident to all those who, 
like me, have not this power of making them- 
selves happy in spite of "the senses and reason *'\ 



Sect. 1.3 ON IMMORTALITY. 27 

that the learned and dignified author would 
not have resorted to such an extraordinary 
source of human happiness, had it been with- 
in the powers of sense and reason, taken to- 
gether, to render our state sufficiently over- 
balanced by good in this life. 

Besides this unwilling virtual admission of 
our author, and the general concurrence of his 
translator, we find the latter express to the 
point in question. For in Page 210, where 
the author says, " God produced all things 
" out of nothing, and gave us being without 
" our advice ; he seems therefore obliged in 
" justice not to suffer us to be reduced to a 
" state that is worse than nonentity," the 

translator adds, 

" It would be so indeed if this were our only state : but 
" as it is at present, I fear many have nothing but the hopes 
" and expectations of another to support them under almost 
" complete misery ; to comfort and encourage them to un- 
" dergo evils infinitely greater than all the benefits of life : 
"Evils which make life itself an evil, and (as our author 
" says) put them into a state worse than nonentity." 

"We have already seen that, in Page 388, 
e 2 



28 AN ESSAY [Sect. t. 

the good Archbishop draws a sort of brief 
comparison between the estates of man and 
beasts, wherein he limits the happiness of the 
latter to " sleep, food," and such " appetites" 

- Now I apprehend it will abundantly 

appear, from men's practice, that the great 
mass of mankind do, and ever will, "elect" 
these gratifications among their most solid 
pleasures. — But farther, I must observe, the 
comparison was in this instance sorely 
strained, to help mankind to a vantage 
ground. — The fact really is, that though 
brutes enjoy the sensual pleasures in an ex- 
tent vastly beyond us, these are not their 
only, nor perhaps their greatest pleasures. 
Besides the very remarkable contrast which 
may be noticed, that most of the innume- 
rable tribes of brutes have a particular kind 
of food choicely suited to their taste, while the 
mass of men, in most countries, fare upon 
things which they find coarse, and often dis- 
gusting ; Besides this, I say, we find a great 



Sect. I/] ON IMMORTALITY. 29 

proportion of brutes continually wantoning 
on earth, in air, and in water, in various de- 
lightful ways which man would fain imitate, 
but never can accomplish. — The pleasures 
which brutes thus take, are partly sensual, 
and partly mental; for there is no doubt they 
enjoy the society and converse of their own 
kind : But far beyond this, their courtships, 
their sympathies, their fidelities, often through 
a long course of years, and their exemplary 
discharge of domestic duties, evince their high 
gratification in those acts.- To whatever 
structure of mind we choose to refer these ob- 
servances, we must confess they display ex- 
amples of liappiness therein, which the great- 
er number of human beings cannot reach. 

This, however, is not the place for me 

to enumerate, or describe, the round of in- 
stinctive pleasures. 

The gentle charge of partiality which I 
have here made against my author is, in ef- 
fect, confessed by himself in Page 184, where, 



30 ' AN ESSAY £Sect. 1/ 

not having the cause of reason then immedi- 
ately in his eye ; and being to consider only 
the good of creating brute animals ; he says, 
" The common objection then is of no force, 
" viz. that inanimate matter might have been 
"prepared for this use (food); for 'tis better 
4< that it should be animated ; especially as 
" such animals are ignorant of futurity, and 
" are neither conscious nor solicitous about 
"their being made for this purpose. So that 
" so long as they live, they enjoy themselves 
" without anxiety ; at least they rejoice in the 
" present good, andareneither tormented with 
s< the remembrance of what is past, nor the fear 
" of what is to come ; and lastly, are killed 

with less pain than they would be by dis- 
" temper, or old age." 

In this passage we have a compensation 
for what he says in page 388, by a few lead- 
ing features of instinctive happiness sketched 
to the truth of life, though indeed but a few, 
compared with the whole. Yet how much 



Sect. 10 ON IMMORTALITY. 31 

it says in few words — " so long as they live 
" they enjoy themselves without anxiety." — 
Why, if this be the case, it cannot matter 
whether the number of their pleasures be 
great or small ; though I shall have to show 
they are far more numerous, or various, than 
the author has here supposed them to be. 

Enough, I trust, has appeared, since Arch- 
bishop King has so deplorably found, that 
human sense and reason, taken together, do 
not afford us " that greatest good whereby 
man excels other animals ;" but, that we must 
search for it in his s< power of elections :"■ — 
and since the Bishop of Carlisle freely con- 
fesses, our state would be, to many, worse 
than nonentity r , " were it our only estate," 

But to conclude, of these high authorities, 

I shall here quote one other remark. In 

page 199 it is said, " Hence Childhood, blessed 
" with the simple enjoyment of good things and 
" void of care, becomes more pleasant to us than 
" any other age''' — -Now this express and de- 



52 AN ESSAY [[Sect. I, 

cisive acknowledgment amounts to the fol- 
lowing ; that man, (if he be but fed and com- 
forted,) is most happy during that stage of 
life when he has least exercise of reason; 
which, in other words, is when he most re- 
sembles an instinctive animal. That this is 
the truth I agree ; and now let us see what 
this strictly amounts to according to Arch- 
bishop King himself, in general concurrence 

with the Bishop of Carlisle. We know 

that the pleasures of a child are fewer, and 
far more limited in extent, than the pleasures 
of many tribes of brutes : therefore, accord- 
ing to our author, man, if provided and che- 
rished, is most happy during that part of his 
life, when he cannot possess so many, nor so ex- 
tensive pleasures, as are enjoyed by several in- 
stinctive tribes. That this last conclu- 
sion is by no means strained, I leave to the 
judgment of the impartial reader. 

The next authority 1 think proper to ap- 
peal to, is that of Dr. Tillotson. — —This 



Sect. 1/] ON IMMORTALITY. 33 

learned author in his discourse concerning 
the Immortality of the Soul, is very full 
upon the subject of human miseries, and of 
the inequality of human happiness. He con- 
siders this last as one of the strongest argu- 
ments we have for the soul's immortality; 
and expresses his reason thus. " The sum 
** of this argument which I have thus largely 
" dilated upon, because I look upon it as one 
" of the most strong and convincing of the 
" soul's immortality, is this: that the justice 
" of God's providence cannot sufficiently be 
" vindicated, but upon the supposal of this 
"principle of the soul's Immortality: where- 
" as if this principle be admitted, that men 
" pass out of this life into an eternal state of 
" Happiness or Misery, according as they 
" have behaved themselves in this world ; 
" then the account of the unequal providen- 

" ces of God in this world is easy." —That 

the argument is the strongest we can derive 
from any view of our own species, must be 

F 



31 AN ESSAY [Sect. I. 

very generally felt : But Dr. Tillotson goes 
farther, and agrees with me, to look a little 

beyond our own species. In the following 

passage he draws a brief comparison be- 
tween our earthly state and that of lower ani- 
mals ; and finds that the advantage , in this 

life, lies with brutes. " The condition of 

" men in this present life, is attended with 
" so many frailties, liable to so many miseries 
" and sufferings, to so many pains and dis- 
" eases, to such various causes of sorrow and 
" trouble, of fear and vexation, by reason of 
" the many hazards and uncertainties which 
" not only the comforts and contentments of 
" our lives, but even life itself is liable to, 
" that the pleasure and happiness of it is by 
4i these very much rebated ; so that were not 
" men trained on with the hopes of some- 
" thing better hereafter, life itself would be 
" to many men an insupportable burden ; if 
" men were not supported and born up un- 
" der the anxieties of this present life with 



Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 35 

" the hopes and expectations of a happier 
" state in another world, mankind would be 
" the most imperfect and unhappy part of 
" God's creation. For although other crea- 
" tures be subjected to a great deal of vanity 
" and misery, yet they have this happiness, 
" that as they are made for a short duration 
" and continuance, so they are only affected 
" with the present, they do not fret and dis- 
" content themselves about the future, they 
" are not liable to be cheated with hopes, 
" nor tormented with fears, nor vexed at dis~ 
" appointments, as the sons of men are." 

This expresses enough : and the reasons 
why such comparisons and conclusions as 
the above mentioned, (being once made,) 
have not led to a more extensive investiga- 
tion and proportionate inference in result, 
will be matter for our consideration farther 
on. 

We will next take the sentiments of Arch 

deacon Paley.~He glances but slightly at 
F 2 



36 AN ESSAY £Sect. f. 

the comparative fact ; but what he does say, 
is no less than this, that though " the average 
" of sensations, the plurality, and the pre- 
"ponderancy, is in favor of happiness by a 

" vast excess," " in our own species, 

" perhaps the assertion may be more ques- 

" tionable than in any other." Now 

this last remark, by an admired moral phi- 
losopher, in the happiest nation and hap- 
piest age that have been produced by all the 
growth and powers of civilization, may well 
awaken the attention of men, to that hope 
which is indicated by the comparison I am 
now making ; a comparison which we here 
see, has, in other hands, proved so mortify- 
ing to the earthly pride of man. 

But the writer who perhaps goes most 
pointedly into the comparative fact, is Mr, 

Wollaston. In his Religion of Nature 

delineated, at the latter part, (Sect. 9. Page 
210, 211,) he says, " There are other argu- 
" ments for the immortality of the soul, two 



Sect. 1.2 ON IMMORTALITY. 37 

" of which 1 shall leave with you, to be at 
" your leisure pondered well. The one is 
" that if the souls of men are mortal (extin- 
guished at death) the pleasures of brutes, 
" though but sensual, are more sincere, being 
" pall'd or diminished by no diverting consi- 
" deration ; they go wholly into them, and 
" when they have them not they seem less to 
" want them, not thinking of them. Their 
" sufferings are attended with no reflection. 
" They are void of cares, and are under no 
" apprehensions for families and posterity, 
" &c. &c." This passage goes on some- 
way farther in the same strain, and, consi- 
dering I had never seen the author's book 
when my own views were formed, our sen- 
timents are remarkably similar, as will far- 
ther appear in the illustrative Sections of this 
Essay. 

The difference between Mr. Wollastons 
view of the subject, and that I am now tak- 
ing, lies in its extent and estimation.— Re 



38 AN ESSAY [[Sect. & 

does not advance bis argument from brutes, 
as a leading feature, or even as a prominent 
one, at all ; but, brings it in at the close of 
his book, as a make-weight or auxiliary con- 
sideration, and, consequently, as of inferior 
importance, in its nature, to the argument 
drawn from the human species alone. — — — 
The same remark may be applied to the 
other authorities herein mentioned, and to 
all, so far as I know, who have cast this way. 
Though they have been struck by the fact 
itself, and have mentioned it, off hand, they 
do not appear to have noticed its greater 
philosophical value, that is to say, its supe- 
rior nature, as being an argument from es- 
sentials ; while the miseries of human indi- 
viduals afford only an argument from mere 

involved particulars. But, as has already 

been hinted, I apprehend there may be found 
sufficient reasons why men have not gone 
farther into this field ; and these will be sub- 
mitted to the reader in their proper place. 



Sect. ir\ ON IMMORTALITY. 89 

The authorities which have already been 
quoted, will, I trust, be considered fully sa- 
tisfactory, without swelling the number. — 
They are not the sentiments of atheists, seep- 
tics, or malcontents ; but of persons of ex- 
alted rank and character, in every point of 
view which affects our subject. — These per- 
sons must be admitted to have considered 
the matter profoundly, and with every dis- 
position to think the work of Creation good 
upon the w hole, and every part of it ordered 
for the best, by an ALL-WlSE, ALL- 
MERCIFUL OMNIPOTENT. Were it, 
however, requisite, I believe that, besides 
other such sources, considerable support 
might be drawn from even higher authority, 
at least higher in the opinion of all who con- 
fide in the truth of revelation ; and though 
this research cannot claim the aid of any 
such, as inspired, it might certainly with 
propriety quote inspired writers, when they 
speak as mere observers of Nature, — 



40 AN ESSAY [Sect, t 

But upon this head I shall only observe, 
that the care of Providence for instinctive 
Creatures, is remarked in different parts of 
the old and new testaments ; — that the Mo- 
saic law considers it good that brute animals 
be comforted, and provides for it ; and, that 
it seems to have been the opinion of some of 
the highest characters in Scripture, that the 
pleasures and comforts of brutes are of the 

most solid kind for mere earthly beings. 

As an instance of this last, take the saying 
of St. Paul. " If after the manner of men 1 
" have fought with beasts at JEphesus, what 
" advantageth it me if the dead rise not. 
" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
" die." 

But a saying of the same tendency oc- 
curs, as proceeding from one who, even if 
considered as only a mere observer of life, 
stands as high as any man ever did. It is 
the remarkable reply of CHRIST, to one 
who would have followed him to his dwell- 



Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 41 

ing. " The foxes have holes, and the birds 

"of the air have nests ; but the Son of man 
" hath not where to lay his head" 

What picture must have been in the 
thought of the SAVIOUR of man, when he 
breathed this reflection, I leave to the read- 
er without presuming any com men t, since 
it seems to explain itself; and shall merely 
remark, by the way, that the mission of 
CHRIST seems scarcely compatible with the 
supposition that man can, as an earthly being, 
be happy. 

Here, if any one imagine, that the general 
assumption in the present moral argument, as- 
serts more than the true sum of actual hu- 
man misery, he will widely mistake the de- 
sign.— To suppose instinctive tribes hap- 
pier than they are generally thought to 
be, is no assumption that the actual state of 
man is more miserable than it is generally 
thought.— -I do not believe the actual state 
of the species so bad, as Revelation seems to 



48 AN ESSAY [Sect. I. 

threaten, in consequence of man's trans- 
gression ; or worse than it is generally consi- 
dered to be, by the high authorities already 
quoted, and by the sacred writings of the 
old and new testaments. The mention of 
this, as well as the quotations from scrip- 
ture, may be proper, to save the advocates 
of Revelation, whom, I trust, form a great 
majority, from going into the evidence of 
fact with a prejudice founded on error. 
Be it therefore observed, that the argument 
drawn from a comparison of the two different 
ORDERS of minds, which occupy our 
Earth, justifies no complaints of our actual 
state: but, on the contrary, urges us to gra- 
titude, to virtue, and to thoughts of happiness, 
by illustrating the happiness of a much lower 
order of beings, which GOD has placed 
here, in our sight, a grand exemplar of a hap- 
piness, he could easily, without any breach of 
general laws, have bestowed upon man, by 
making him an additional link to the earth- 



Sect. 10 ON IMMORTALITY. 43 

ly, or instinctive chain had he not design- 
ed, and therefore formed, him for a double 
purpose ; that is, for #0j/* an earthly life, — 

and A HIGHER ONE. * 

In human affairs, if any thing be formed to 
answer two purposes, experience leads us to 
expect it should not answer equally well for 
both ; and, if wisely planned, it ought to be 
found most fit for its most important design. 



-1i 



AN ESSAY 



[Sect. II. 



SECTION SECOND. 

OF CONSIDERATIONS WHICH TEND TO PRE- 
VENT A GENERAL COMPARISON OF HUMAN 
LIFE WITH INSTINCTIVE LIFE. 

It has been hinted in the last Section, that 
there exist powerful reasons why the com- 
parison of rational life with that of instinc- 
tive beings, is generally overlooked by ordi- 
nary observers : and, at the same time, equal- 
ly strong ones, why the philosophic feiv who 
have noticed the comparative fact, have not, 
however, made any general application of it. 
■— — These two considerations are so im- 



Sect. 110 ON IMMORTALITY. 45 

portant to our subject, that it becomes ne- 
cessary to devote a Section to each of them : 
and the first named of the two is for present 
discussion. 

The reasons, then, which I suppose to 
have operated upon ordinary observers, so 
as to prevent their making such compari- 
sons, are chiefly as follow ; — Self-love, ~— 
Pride, — • Imagination, — False associations, 
— and, the being confined to narrow views of 
animal life. 

In treating these, a considerable mass of 
illustrative evidence will appear, in support 
of my general assumption, and will be 
drawn from a source which I apprehend is 
deserving the highest credit in this inquiry. 
It consists in the reflections of plain impar- 
tial men, made on the most extended field 
of human nature, at the moment of observa- 
tion ; reflections of men whose statements of 
fact have justly gained the confidence of the 
world, and who took down their impressions 



U AN ESSAY TSect. II. 

warm from the scene. — It is true, 1 am to 
follow these with a detail of particulars, 
drawn from my own actual observation: 
but this is not upon a supposition that such 
evidence will be more satisfactory to the 
reader ; but, because it is a primary object 
to endeavour to bring the general fact home to 
every breast, by embodying its truth in lively 
colours, so as to spread its application, and 
influence, among all ranks of society. At 
the same time it is also no less the design, to 
obviate the objections of the profound Sceptic, 
and win him upon his own ground. — These 
two are, indeed, widely different objects, 
and require very different powers, the want 
of which must here be deeply felt : but the 
difficulty of the task will doubtless excite 
the candour of the judge. 

The first named of the five considerations, 
Self-love t is always drawing comparisons, be- 
tween our own situation and that of other 
men; for, comparison generally flows from 



Stct. II.] ON IMMORTALITY. 47 

some sort of competition, and competition 
arises only from a supposed approach to 
equality. — Now in this employment we often 
warp our judgment so far, as to suppose 
such men happier than ourselves; though, 
it may be, we afterward find they were, at 
the time, really much more miserable. — — 
We carry our own miseries always about 
with us ; they are never hid from ourselves, 
and are usually much over- rated in our own 
estimation : Yet do we nevertheless studi- 
ously conceal them from the million. BWf, 
the like conduct is observed by all prudent 
persons in society ; and thus, to the unre- 
flecting, mankind usually appear in masque- 
rade ; so that, though each thinks his own 
situation unsatisfactory, he imagines the 
world in general has no reason to complain. 
—Such is the common error when men 
compare themselves with their own kind. 

On the contrary, when any circumstance 
calls up a glance of the situation of man in 



48 AN ESSAY £Sect. II. 

comparison with brutes, a very different pas- 
sion instantly takes possession of the mind, 
and usurps the seat of judgment. Self-love 
sleeps ; and pride starts up in its stead, 
back'd by another most erring judge, which 
also steps in, unasked, and utters its deci- 
sion; — This meddling intruder is the imagi- 
nation ; and it will always be found very 
hard to repress its powerful influence. At 
the bare thought of brutes, in any relation to 
ourselves, human nature is immediately 
coiled up in its vanity ; and we usually feel 
an unqualified, uninvestigated contempt for 
their pleasures, — their thoughts, — and their 
general state. — Nay, to such a pitch is this 
pride carried, that it may be said to have 
turned the head of mankind, or, to have left 
us no alternative but to confess gross absur- 
dity, or an equally gross dishonesty, in our 
discourse concerning instinctive kinds. Thus, 
when we see a man covering himself with the 
disgrace of inebriety, we with a marvelloiu 



Sect. II ON IMMORTALITY. 49 

coolness of untruth say, he is as drunk as a 
beast ; and, as he flounders in the mire, the 
tongue almost itches to call him beast ; 
though no beast ever did the like, unless man 

improved its taste. Now, when we view 

brutes, in regard of their happiness, our con- 
clusion is as unjust as when we charge 
them with our own exclusive vices : Our 
pride generally prevents any disposition to- 
ward a fair comparison ; and our imagina- 
tion renders such comparison extremely dif- 
ficult, even if we were so disposed : while 
false associations also arise y and contribute to 
deceive us. 

Since man generally contrives to com- 
mand all other animals, he imperiously 
deems all made for him> and associates the 
ideas of meanness and slavery with these crea- 
tures, at any moment when he thinks of 
them at all. Now, there is a close associa- 
tion in the mind, between these two last 
named ideas and that of misery ; and thus ? 

H 



50 AN ESSAY CSect. II. 

the first complex conception entertained by 
an ordinary person as to the state of a brute, 
is unfavorable in the abstract. 

But this is little compared with the egre- 
gious error into which we are herein betrayed 

by the influence of imagination, A hog 

feasting in the mire, excites great disgust by 
its very appearance ; and the least thought 
of being ourselves placed in a similar situa- 
tion, would cause loathing and misery. 
This idea of the imagination therefore, when 
it happens to arise, we hastily associate tvith 
the state of the hog, and quite overlook that 
he is, at this very moment, as happy as one 
of our ordinary good eaters at a feast ; nay 
perhaps much more so, for he is happy with- 
out alloy, which our human feasters very 
often are not. 

Here we must not be told of the nobleness 
of human pleasures, and the vileness of those 
of brutes.— Were it even supposed that the 
mass of mankind usually cherish nobler plea- 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. M 

sures (which I fear would be found to be 
shooting above our mark) we are to recol- 
lect, that it is not the kind, but the quan- 
tity, the mere mass or amount of happiness, 
that is to decide this important question. 

— If the haseness of brute's happiness 

could operate any way at all in the matter, 
the more vile or worthless it is supposed, 
the more reasonable is our hope that our 
meritorious pleasures, if any such there 
be, will be extended in some future state, to 
form an equivalent to the substantial goods 
which brutes appear to enjoy in a greater 
degree here : But, to deny that happiness is 
happiness, upon a plea that it is ignoble or 
gross, would be an absurdity/which I do not 
apprehend any one will offer by way of ob- 
jection. 

To illustrate the influence of imagination 

in rendering a false estimate of the happiness 

of brutes, almost innumerable instances 

might be offered,— — In order to effect this 
h 2 



52 AN ESSAY [Sect. II. 

as briefly as may be, I remark, that food, 
clothing, and lodging, seem to be the 
three principal points for consideration, since 
the imagination is most, or first, apt to dwell 

upon these. What epicure, sitting down 

warm, and elegantly appointed, to a sump- 
tuous feast, can easily bring his imagination 
to figure a brute equally happy out in a 
bleak field, eating insipid grass ; or drinking 
water equally insipid, with its limbs im- 
mersed in the cold stream ? If however he 
be told that the creature is thus content, he 
will pity the imperfection of taste in this 
brute, and conclude that its pleasure of the 
palate is scarcely better than indifference ; 
nor will he once imagine that the direct con- 
trary is the fact ;— that the taste of the brute 
is exquisite, so as to receive delight from a 
very delicate gustatory stimulus, just as 
children do from milk ; while it is his own 
palate only, of the two, that is imperfect, 
being dulled by the use of high stimulants, 



Sect. II;] ON IMMORTALITY. 63 

and without which it can no longer be ex- 
cited. 

The like reasoning will hold in regard to 
the clothing of brutes which, we must ob- 
serve, also includes, in great part, their 
lodging, since ihe natural coverings of brutes 
generally answer for both, and are admira- 
bly adapted to their situations. The wild 

boar, nestled in his thicket ; the tiger, bed- 
ded in long grass ; or, the monkey, roosted 
on a tree, does not appear, to us, to be very 
enviably lodged, compared with even the 
poorer class of men in such a country as 
England. But, in the first place, this is not 
a fair comparison ; because many tribes of 
brutes, such as Birds, Bees, Beavers, and 
Ants, are far better lodged, even according to 
our idea of comfort, than the average of man- 
kind. — In the next place, of such animals as 
are most exposed to wet and cold, it is not 
true that they feel that want of comfort which 
we imagine. — Their natural coverings, their 



Si AN ESSAY QSect. II. 

constitutions, and, above all, the effect of 
habit, amply make up for all seeming defi- 

ciences. -The following remarks from 

Lord Bacon's ' Prognostics of weather from 
t animals' shows that this reasoning holds 
even in the climate of England, which is 
cold and severe compared with the greater 
part of the habitable earth. After enume- 
rating a variety of ivater and land birds that 
take pleasure in, and u seem to call upon, 
" rain,'' he goes on to state that, " Beasts 
" generally delight in a moist air, which 
** makes them feast the better : whence 
" sheep will go early in the morning to feed 
u against rain. Cattle, deer, and rabbits, also 
'* feed hard before rain : and a heifer will toss 
" up her nose, and snuff up the air against 
" rain." 

Not only does it hold true of brutes, parti- 
cularly those in a state of Nature, that they 
feel very little misery from the two great 
considerations of clothi?ig and lodging ; for 



Sect. HO ON IMMORTALITY. 

the same holds very extensively of mankind 
in a state of Nature, In proof of this we 
may remark the very little clothing worn by 
savages, on the score of comfort, in any tem- 
perate region ; and the great wretchedness, 
or imperfection of their habitations, in many 
countries where their fishing apparatus, their 
implements of war, their navies, and orna- 
mental dress, evince a very considerable and 
even admirable advance in arts. Of this 
fact I have myself had sufficient occular 
proof ; but refer the reader, for his greater 
satisfaction, to the instructive voyages of our 
illustrious circumnavigator, Captain Cook. 
And here, in naming this great man, I have 
to add, that he and his associates form the 
authority I lately alluded to. I would there- 
fore suggest, that a perusal of his voyages, 
in those parts which describe both human 
life, and that of animals, will perhaps be 
found very conducive to the readers form- 
ing a just estimate of the undertaking now 



>6 AN ESSAY £Sect. EE 

before him. He will therein find, the opi- 
nion of a most sagacious observer, (and I 
suppose we may include the majority of 
his associate voyagers) is on the same side 
with mine, especially where he estimates 

the happiness of savage life. 

But beyond this, from the picture he draws 
of brute happiness, even in some of the most 
dismal regions of the globe, 1 shall quote 
him as a very high authority, in coincidence 
with that of speculative men in the closet. 

In severe climates, one would readily ima- 
gine the considerations of clothing and lodg- 
ing must be very serious for any animal. 
But they probably are less so to brutes than 
to man. — Birds, bears, and foxes, and other 
such arctic animals, seem to be at least as 
well off as the Esquimaux, or the Kamtscha- 
dale : And I should suppose the amphibi- 
ous tribes must be better off. — Now I don't 
know that the Kamtschadale is so badly si- 
tuated, in these particulars, as the men of 



Sect. II.] ON IMMORTALITY. 57 

many more advanced countries : and this at 
least [ can say, that in several barbarous and 
savage nations, situated in temperate cli- 
mates, T have not observed any men, the 
New-Hollanders excepted, to be more mi- 
serably housed, than some human beings are 
in the bleak northern extremity of Britain 
itself. But in this last situation, if the na- 
tive be furnished with food, I believe he will 
not think his poor lodging so great an evil : 
and, as to the Kamtschadale, we are told he 
thinks himself the happiest nation upon 
Earth. 

From these facts we learn, spite of preju- 
dice or imagination, that civilised man has 
raised up to himself a ivorld of factitious com- 
forts, which have not raised his happiness ; 
(at least not without raising his frail needs in 
an equal degree) but the want of which, after 
they become habitual, renders him truly mi- 
serable. 

Here also we are led to see, that the great 
i 



>8 AN ESSAY TSect. IL 

cause of deception in judging of the question 
in hand, is, that civilised man never in imagi- 
nation divests himself of his factitious wants. 
—He would certainly feel miserable in be- 
ing sent from his delicacies and his drawing- 
room, to coarse fare and a hovel ; and there- 
fore he cannot imagine a savage happy under 
such circumstances, though he have food, 
healthy family, pastime, good humour, and 
freedom, to bless him. But not only is the 
savage happy thus ; for many an individual 
who has both tasted, and been fully sensible 
of, the comforts of civilised life, has subse- 
quently passed some of his happiest hours in 
a hut. 

This brings me to glance at a considera- 
tion which deeply interests society, in ano- 
ther point of view. These errors of the ima- 
gination are not confined to the present sub- 
ject ; they, in a very strong degree, influence 
the tastes and morals of civilised society.— 
As one instance let us observe, that the na- 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 59 

tural relishes of children are for fruits, cakes, 
and other sweet meats ; But their kind pa- 
rents, acting merely from their own acquired 
tastes, cannot imagine the little things happy 
without the addition of Wine, or any other 
such trash which happens to be on table. 
Now few children have any relish for wine 
at first, that is, if observed at the very first 
trial : but, the taste is found passable, the 
colour is tempting, and the example of elders 
is still more so ; and by the third or fourth 
trial, the foundation of this happiness is 
laudably laid, for the infant's future exulta- 
tion as a member of civilised society. 

No one will deny that the pleasure of the 
bottle (for its oivn sake ) is one of the grand 
pleasures of civilised life. Yet I apprehend 
a man's happiness is augmented by being 
taught this pleasure, in some such way as if 
Jie were taught to walk with a crutch, until 
he became unable to go at all without it ; 

while with it he cannot go so well, as he 
12 



CO AN ESSAY QSect. II. 

would have done had he never known its 
use, 

If this reasoning were applied to the w hole 
catalogue of our pleasures, one by one, we 
probably should find; how many of them do 
actually tend to make our condition better 
than it would have been without them. 

It is very remarkable, and important here, 
that in the two opposite, and dreadful ex- 
treme countries of the habitable Earth ; 
where climate and want of intercourse have 
rendered man's reason, and his means, the 
poorest possible ; men are found to be among 
the happiest in the world. 

First, of the Northern extreme. — Captain 
King, in hie continuation of Cooks third 
voyage, communicates an account of the 
people from Mr. Steller, who resided some 
time in Kamtschatka, and who, among 
other matter, says of the Kamtschadales, 
u they believe themselves to have been cre- 
" ated and placed in this very spot by their 



Sect. Iig ON IMMORTALITY. 6l 

" god, Koutckou ; that they are the most 
" favoured of his creatures ; the most fortu- 
" nate and happy of beings ; and that their 
" country is superior to all others, affording 
" means of gratification far beyond what are 
" any where else to be met with," 

Next, of the Southern Hemisphere.— In the 
account of Captain Cook's first voyage, the 
following reflection occurs upon the people 
of that miserable region, Terra del Fuego. — 
" Upon the whole, these people appeared to 
" be the most destitute and forlorn, as well 
" as the most stupid of all human beings ; 
"the outcasts of nature, who spent their 
" lives in wandering about the dreary wastes,' 
" where two of our people perished with cold 
" in the midst of summer ; with no dwelling 
" but a wretched hovel of sticks and grass, 
" which would not only admit the wind, but 
" the snow and the rain ; almost naked ; and 
" destitute of every convenience that is fur- 
" nished by the rudest art, having no imple- 



\ 



m AS m&AY [Sect. IL 

" merit even to dress their food : yet they 
" were content. They seemed to have no 
" wish for any thing more than they possess- 
" ed, nor did any thing that we offered them 
" appear acceptable, but beads as an orna- 
u mental superfluity of life. What bodily 
" pains they might suffer from the severities 
" of the winter we could not know ; but it is 
" certain, that they suffered nothing from the 
" want of the innumerable articles which we 
u consider, not as the luxuries and conveni- 
" ences only, but the necessaries of life : as 
5< their desires are few, they probably enjoy 
" them all ; and how much they may be 
" gainers by an exemption from the care, la- 
u bour, and solicitude, which arise from a 
" perpetual and unsuccessful effort to gratify 
" that infinite variety of desires which the 
" refinements of artificial life have produced 
61 among us, is not very easy to determine : 
" possibly this may counterbalance all the 
" real disadvantages of their situation in 



Sect II.j ON IMMORTALITY. 63 

" comparison with ours, and make the scales 
" by which good and evil are distributed to 
5< man, hang eyen between us." 

These reflections upon the state of two 
Nations who, living at opposite extremes of 
man's terrestrial range, have scarce any thing 
but animal health and ignorance to make them 
happy, exhibit to our conviction stubborn 

fads, WHICH IT WERE VAIN for US to AT- 
TEMPT to deny. Whatever figures of happi* 
ness, or misery, our imagination would con- 
jure up, we must from such facts be assured, 
that they apply to us only, — and may not even 
as such, raise our actual happiness above 
that of the most remote savages. 

Having put this matter in so clear a light 
in regard of the tivo extremes, let us complete 
the view with the picture afforded us, by 
the same shrewd authority, of Savage Na- 
tions inhabiting the middle region of the 
Earth, namely, the Society Isles, in the great 



6-i AN ESSAY £Sect. II 

Pacific Ocean. — Upon these people the fol- 
lowing reflection occurs. — 

" It is not indeed strange that the sorrows 
" of these artless people should be transient, 
" any more than that their passions should 
" be suddenly and strongly expressed : what 
" they feel they have never been taught either 
" to disguise or suppress, and having no ha- 
" bits of thinking which perpetually recall the 
4< past, and anticipate the future, they are af- 
" fected by all the changes of the passing 
" hour, and reflect the colour of the time, 
" however frequently it may vary : they have 
" no project which is to be pursued from 
" day to day, the subject of unremitted anx- 
" iety and solicitude, that first rushes into 
" the mind when they awake in the morn- 
" ing, and is last dismissed when they sleep 
" at night. Yet 'if we admit that they are 
" upon the whole happfer than we, we must 
" admit that the child is happier than the 



Sect. II.] ON IMMORTALITY. 65 

" man, and that we are losers by the perfeo 
" tion of our nature, the increase of our 
" knowledge and the enlargement of our 
" views." 

By this, upon the whole, we observe, that 
in proportion as reflection is narrowed, that 
is as reason approaches instinct, the man is 

FOUND HAPPIER. 

Perhaps the reader will not fail to observe 
the striking agreement between the senti- 
ments of this unbiassed Navigator, and those 
of Mr. Wollaston which I have already 
quoted in concurrence with my own : but 
I am wronging the subject, for unbiassed he 
was not, as appears from his reluctance to 
allow that those savages were happier than, 
civilised man.— He says, "yet if we admit, 

" <$fc. <$fc"< Now he was not called upon 

to admit it, if the truth did not force itself 
upon his ingenuous mind, even in evident 
violation of his vanity as a member of civi- 
lised society,— What is farther remarkable 

K 



66 AN ESSAY [Sect. II. 

is, that he finds consolation in the very sen- 
timent of Archbishop King, — that if the sa- 
vage really is happier, " the child is happier 

" than the man." The truth, thus wrung 

from unwilling authorities so widely differ- 
ent; the dignified Churchman in his closet, 
and the Voyager in his course; must be su- 
perior to all the tortuous insinuations of our 
prejudice, aud, even, to the strongest con- 
vulsions of our pride. 

But, let us return to the Kamtschadales, 
—We do not trust even to the best observer 
for the truth of their happiness, for it ap- 
pears they think themselves happiest. It 

would therefore be worse than impertinence to 

say they are not happy. -Their confession 

also strengthens the credit of Captain Cook's 
opinion as to the happiness of the men of 
Terra del Fuego ; and thus we see how far 
ignorance and a sound animal constitution can 
make even human beings happy in a most 
miserable Country, though these beings 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 67 

must still have some of the anxieties of fore- 
thought, besides Avars and other evils, which 
brutes have not. 

Let us but consider, for a moment, what 
are the gifts these men possess to make them 
so happy. They are soon enumerated. — 
A sound animal constitution including cheer- 
fulness ; — An instinctive pleasure in their 
young, or family ; — A pleasure in the enter- 
prizes of hunting and fishing ;— Eating ; — 
Sleeping, &c. ; — and lastly, A Happy igno- 
rance of greater enjoyments ; with a fore- 
sight as circumscribed (by want of thinking,) 
as it can well be in human creatures.— Such 
are the endowments of those who think them- 
selves, in the worst of countries, the happiest 
men in the world. 

Here now I will turn to another order of 
beings, and fairly ask which of the above 
endowments is not found, as well, with Sea- 
horses on their beds of ice, as with these 

happy Kamtschadales.— Those sea animals 
k 2 



59 ' AN ESSAY [Sect. II. 

appear to lead an easy happy life. — Ice can- 
not be cold to them, since they delight to rest 
and sleep upon it, in preference to the water : 
and, from their appearance and habits, it 
does not seem that they want food — Neither 
are they a torpid race, so as to be insensible 
to pleasure and 1 pain. The affectionate 
conduct of the old to the young ; and of the 
young back to the old ; show that they both 
feel, and enjoy their feelings ; which also are 
seldom disturbed by cruel intruders who 
outrage them. 

But it is not only one species of brutes 
that in such severe climates appears to live 
at least as happily as the happy Kamtscha- 
dales. The following account, given in 
Captain Cooks voyages, of an assemblage of 
animals upon a small Island in the horrid 
region of Cape Horn, exhibits a picture of 
brute happiness which seems to reflect no 
small degree of mortification, if not of odium, 
upon civilised man.— 4 ' It is amazing 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 69 

" to see how the different animals which in- 
" habit this little spot are mutually recon- 
" ciled. They seem to have entered into a 
" league not to disturb each other's tranquil- 
lity. The sea-lions occupy most of the 
" sea-coast ; the sea-bears take up their 
" abode in the isle ; the shags have post in 
" the highest cliffs ; the penguins fix their 
" quarters where there is the most easy cora- 
" munication to and from the sea ; and the 
" other birds choose more retired places. 
" We have seen all these animals mix toge- 
" ther, like domestic cattle and poultry in a 
" farm-yard, without one attempting to mo- 
44 lest the other. Nay, I have often observed 
" the eagles and vultures sitting on the hil- 
" locks among the shags, without the latter^ 
" either young or old, being disturbed at 
u their presence. It may be asked how 
" these birds of prey live ? I suppose on the 
M carcases of seals and birds which die by 



n AN ESSAY QSect II. 

" various causes ; and probably not a few, 
" as they are so numerous." 

Upon reading* this, let any one tell me the 
name of that civilised Nation of men, where 
our Human u Eagles and Vultures mix, like 
" domestic cattle and poultry in a farm yard, 
" without one attempting to molest the other \ 
— and where " the old and the young are safe 
" and undisturbed," by these rapacious in- 
mates ?— Had a man, by chance, found 

the narrative, ivithout the names of the several 
species, would he not believe that it is a de- 
scription of some new Sect of christians, 
who, resolving to live up to the spirit of their 
LORD's precepts, were thus displaying to 
the World a proof that a whole people may 

be truly christian ? — Were any man, in 

the most virtuous country, to expect to bring 
society to such a pitch of mutual and total 
forbearance, as was witnessed among the 
most discordant species of brutes, in the 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 71 

worst of regions, would not every one smile 

at his knight-errantry? The best Nations 

may improve, and that incalculably ; but for 
once I may assume the gift of prophecy, and 
predict, they never will reach the observances 
of Captain Cook's " cattle and poultry? 

Here, in illustrating the DECEITS OF 
THE IMAGINATION, in our regard of 
the happiness of brutes, I have naturally 
[fallen to touch upon its influence in regard 
of our estimate of Savage life, which in fact 
amounts, so far, to a comparison of the hap- 
piness of savage man with civilised man.™ 
I do not however intend this to be taken for 
a general or full comparison. My main ar- 
gument is not the greater happiness of savage 
life, but, the earthly advantages of instinct 
over reason, both in civilised and savage life. 
> — I not only admit, but argue, that reason 
produces dreadful mischiefs in savage life, 
as well as in civilised societies; and if it 
produce greater evils in the latter, I as rea~ 



n AN ESSAY [[Sect. IX, 

dily allow, it also produces greater goods. — 
It would be a tedious task, aud perhaps a 
very difficult one, to come to a balance upon 
this comparison ; but my object does not 
entangle me in any such difficulty ; and 
therefore, when I touch upon particular 
points, to illustrate my own views, it will 
only show what sort of weapons a man might 
wield in favour of savage happiness, were 
this the main question to be settled.— In 
any such question as this however, it must 
never be forgot, that whatever could be 
urged against civilised life, its balance of 
good becomes manifest, and vast, whenever 
we take in (as we must do) the knowledge of 
A CREATOR, and the hope of hereafter. 

In concluding this argument drawn from 
Captain Cook's observations on human na- 
ture, there is one broad fact of savage life, 
necessary to be stated ; because, thereupon 
I have directly founded a most important 
conclusion. It is this,— There are many Sa- 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 73 

vage Nations on Earth, which ive would 
say are miserably clothed and lodged, who 
not only think themselves happy, but were 
judged, by our people who had seen all the 
rest of the world, to have good reason for 

being happy. —This I state because some 

may think it a better criterion of happiness 
than the poor ignorant Kamtschadales' 
opinion of themselves. — - Now upon 
this fact I extend the following judgment, 
that, if these fortunate Savages had not 

WARS, — nor HUMAN SACRIFICES, nor SU- 
PERSTITIOUS and OTHER FEARS, — all of 

which are of reason's growth ; but, in 
place of tbis mischievous Reason, if they 
were endowed with a noble instinct, like 
that of the Elephant ; they must he happier 
than they now are, in their continual bloody 

feuds and fears. AND, since they are 

actually found to be (even as it is) among 
the happiest nations in the world, it thus be- 
comes manifest, that the happiest nation of 

L 



74, AN ESSA^ [Sect. II. 

men, (but I will say only the average of 
men) are not so happy, as a nation of Ele- 
phants well supplied with food. 

I request here, that the philosophic and 
sceptical reader will mark the reserve with 
which I have taken this position. — I have 
not, like so many high authorities, advanced 
the assertion in the most general terms, that 
brutes are happier than men.' — The instinc- 
tive scale is made up of innumerable grada- 
tions in which happiness (as well as faculties,) 
may be graduated; and there may be wise 
reasons why some species of brutes should 
be made less happy than man, though other 

species may be more happy, -All that 

I advance, as matter of fact, is, that the hap- 
pier species of brutes have more earthly 
happiness than the average of men, if the 
hope of hereafter be totally excluded. 

If, therefore, there be any who would con- 
trovert my assumption herein, they must, 
before they can approach it, totally demolish 



Sect. ON IMMORTALITY. 7* 

the assertions of such men as Mr. Wollaston, 
—Dr. Tillotson,- — Archbishop King —Arch- 
deacon Paley, and others of that class, who 
have asserted the fact in unlimited terms, and 
far beyond what I do ; though I have labour- 
ed to show that the CONSEQUENCES of 
it go far beyond what they thought, that is, 
that the fact being admitted, the moral ar- 
gument arising out of it, is of vastly greater 
philosophic value, than any argument drawn 
from the human species alone. — My posi- 
tion of fact, indeed, stands so intrenched and 
retired, compared with theirs, that it might 
stand impregnable, even were their ground 
demolished : But the admissions appear on 
so many sides that I do not suppose it 
needs defence. 

Should it be observed, that in the quo- 
tations given from Archbishop King, he 
has not asserted the fact, like the rest. I an- 
swer, true ; not in his " Essay ;" but, he has 

done it in the very outset of his " Sermon on 
L 2 



10 AN" ESSAY QSect. II. 

"the fall of man." — "The Beasts are sick, 
"and want, and die as well as men; but 
" yet are not so miserable, because they see 
"no farther than the present, and therefore 
" are not tormented with the remembrance 
" of what is past, or the fear of what is to 
" come. Whereas men are apprised that 
"pain and diseases, disappointments and 
" death are before them, and have not the 
" like certainty of one single act of pleasure 
" to balance the dismal consideration." 

Who, indeed, can help being struck at 
this language ; — from the pulpit, — from a high 
dignity, and one who also was bent, to his 
utmost, to assign the advantage to man ; as 
his great work clearly shows. But, since 
the truth thus forces its way through the in- 
terstices of the intention, who can deny it? 
—Those who would, Mall perceive how far 
they have to go, and what forces to encoun- 
ter, before it can be any concern of mine to 
look to my own ground. 



g$ct II.-J ON IMMORTALITY. 77 

Besides the reserve, be it also remember- 
ed, mine is not a mere closet view. I draw 
it directly from actual observation of both 
the savage and the elephant; and supported 
by the better observation of men to whom 
the world owes much credit and respect. 

It has now I trust appealed how liable we 
are to mistake, in estimating the grosser 
pleasures and comforts of brutes. But there 
is another error of great magnitude, which is 
usually added to this last ; for we generally 
imagine the grosser pleasures to be the only 
ones which brutes are formed to enjoy. — 
How false an estimate this is of instinctive 
life, cannot be /unknown to those who have 
considered it with any attention. — I have no 
doubt that the pleasure which brutes take in 
associating with their own kind, and the pain 
they feel in total solitude, is as great, as is 
usually felt by man in like situations. — So 
strong indeed is the call in brutes for soci- 



78 ;AN ESSAY tSect. II. 

ety of some hind or other, that animals of the 
most opposite natures will form friendships, 
and afterward pine when they are forcibly 
separated ; a fact, I believe, too well known 
to need being illustrated by particular in- 
stances. 

As to the enjoyment of brutes in the soci- 
ety of their own kind, the following remark 

from Bishop Cumberland may suffice, 

" It is two well k?iown to need proof, that 
" Animals, if by any accident they have been 
"sometimes separated from others of the 
" same kind, as soon as they have come within 
" sight of one another, even at a distance, im- 
" mediatelyre/o^e,shew their joy by gestures, 
" run to one another, and with pleasure eat, 
" drink, and play together, but very seldom 
" fight with one another, and that if at any 
"time they happen to fight, immediately 
"after a victory, 6 for the most part obtained 
" without any damage, the same animals 
"herd again very lovingly and peaceably 
" together." 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 79 

But there are other relations, in which 
the pleasures of society appear to be far 
higher with brutes, than in such cases as are 

here just alluded to. — If we remark the 

uniform spirit with which they follow up all 
the different duties of domestic life ; (at 
which I have already glanced in the last 
Section) we must confess, that what may be 
called their refined enjoyments, bear a very 
considerable proportion to those that are 
merely sensual. 

Would we strain this consideration to a 
comparison with human life, it would only 
the more confirm what has been advanced. 
There is scarce any passion under which 
human nature appears more amiable than in 
social affection. — Yet, the truth is, that in 
receding from civilised man, to brutes, this 
passion seems rather to gather strength, than 
to grow weaker. The tremendous New~Zea- 
landers, have been observed to be agitated 
even to tears with joy, upon meeting after 



®9 AN ESSAY QSect. II. 

a very short separation ; and I can myself 
assert the kindness of their nature, in ordi- 
nary, to be equal to that of any nation I have 

seen. But, 1 would ask any man, if there 

be found instances of savage affection (or, 
if he please, of civilised affectioir) which cut 
deeper into the feeling soul, than the sorrows 
of a bear, or sea-horse, robbed of her cub :*■ — 
or, on the other hand, if there is any picture 
of extacy that surpasses the meeting (as it is 
described) of two friendly elephants that had 
been a little time kept asunder. 

* B "The gentlemen who went on this party were witnesses 
" of several remarkable instances of parental affection in 
" those animals (Sea-horses). On the approach of our 
" boats toward them, they all took their cubs under their 
" fins, and endeavoured to escape with them into the sea. 
"Several whose young were killed or wounded and left 
" floating on the surface, rose again, and carried them down, 
11 sometimes just as our people were going to take them 
" into the boat ; and might be traced bearing them to a 
M great distance through the water, which was covered with 
" their blood : we afterwards observed them bring them, 
" at times, above the surface, as if for air, and again diving 

" under it with a dreadful bellowing." -Cook's Third 

Voyage. 



Sect, ll.^ ON IMMORTALITY. 81 

" Separated from each other during a 
" long and tedious journey, the moment they 
" met again was to them a moment of great 
" joy, and to the observer of nature, a curious 
" event. When the female entered the stable 
" which was prepared for her, and which 
" was divided into two compartments, com- 
" municating with each other by a door, she 
" uttered first of all a cry expressive of her 
" joy at being at liberty: she did not per- 
" ceive the male who was already in the 
" compartment, occupied in eating. Neither 
" did he think that his companion was so 
" near him ; but the cornak having called 
"him, he turned round, and immediately 
" these two animals ran toward each other, 
" and began to utter cries of joy so lively 
" and so loud, that the whole place shook : 
M at the same time they made a sort of noise 
" with their trunks, which resembled a strong 
" wind. The joy of the female was the 
" most impetuous, and she expressed it par* 

M 



82 AN ESSAY QSect. II, 

" ticularly by a quick flapping of her ears, 
" which she moved like the wings of a bird, 
" and with an extreme celerity. She moved 
"her trunk over the body of the male with 
" tenderness and delight : she directed it 
" particularly towards his ear, where she 
" held it some time ; often, too, after having 
" passed it over the whole body of the male, 
"she brought it towards her own mouth. 
" The male also passed his trunk over her 
" body : but his joy was more concentrated, 
" and he seemed to express it by tears, 

which flowed in abundance from his eyes.' 

Surely no man who has witnessed such 
scenes as this last described, or who believes 
them, can doubt the high pleasure which 
brutes have in associating with their kind : 
And if in the case of the bear, or the sea- 
horse, any one should object, that the in- 
stinct of the dam, for her young, is of a pecu- 
liar kind, we see by the conduct of the 
elephants, that the evidence is not limited to 



Sect. II.] ON IMMORTALITY. 83 

any such cases. —Besides this, I have 

had occasion to observe, of certain wild 
birds, which go in pairs, that when one of 
them was shot, the forlorn survivor con- 
tinued to hover round the dead, trying to 
rouse it by piteous and heart-rending lamen- 
tations, regardless of danger, or, as it were, 
seeking a common fate.— -And, for more 
ordinary cases, who is there that has not no- 
ticed how dogs, and other brutes, pine for the 
loss of human beings with whom they have 
associated ? 

Perhaps it is a law of all finite minds, that 
none can be happy in total solitude. And, 
I have no hesitation to believe, that society 
is as great a happiness to brutes in general, 
as to man in general. 

It would be taking up time unnecessarily 
to enlarge, since, I trust from what has been 
advanced, we must perceive a necessity to be 
continually on our guard, against the power- 
ful influence of the imagination, through- 

M 2 



84 AN ESSAY £Sect. II. 

out the whole of a comparison of instinctive 
life with human life. 



We come now to the last of the five enu- 
merated considerations of this Section, 
namely — " the being confined to narrow 
" views of animal life." This is a circum- 
stance which usually arises from a coTifined 

situation. Some countries, that are very 

fortunately situated for the well being and 
increase of mankind, prove much less so for 
instinctive creatures than many other re- 
gions, especially those lying in milder cli- 
mates.— Great Britain is of the former 

description. — It indeed abounds with re- 
xdaimed animals, and I think their state, in 
general, quite happy enough to establish 
our moral argument : yet there appears to 
the imagination such a dullness and cold com- 
fort in their tranquil content, that, in ordi- 
nary, people are not apt to estimate their 
happiness at any thing near the truth, But 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 83 

in those countries, on the other hand, where 
ivild animal life abounds, in all its undescri- 
bable luxuriancy of numbers and variety, the 
general scene makes a vastly different im- 
pression upon the observer.— — —We there 
see instinctive tribes enjoying such an ex- 
tent and liveliness of pleasure, as the most 
ordinary observer cannot overlook ; — though, 
indeed, it generally happens that those who 
are accidently thrown into such situations, 
have other objects in mind, than that of gene- 
ralising, or of applying the fact. 

With regard to Britain, it may be said we 
find our poets enlivening their lays with de- 
scriptions of animal happiness, especially of 
feathered life. But the comparative truth 
really is, that if a man travel over this Island 
after having traversed certain other regions 
of the Earth, one of the most striking im- 
pressions he will receive from the general 
face of the country, is, a seeming almost to- 
tal want of free animal lif e, and more espe- 



86 AN ESSAY £Sect. II. 

cially of feathered life ; — a melancholy blank ; 
— a xcant certainly beneficial and therefore 
desireable, but, at the same time, in regard 
of our present subject, a dreary void and 
silence, instead of a continually moving 
picture, and a varied happy noise, of count- 
less millions and varieties, of animals which 
occupy earth, air, and water, and whose 
sensations make up a sum of happiness in- 
conceivably vast. 

I believe it may be safely asserted, that a 
person may traverse far the greater part of 
the British empire, without the most distant 
conception of the numbers, or sum total of 
greater animal life on this Earth, or being once 
awakened to the consideration how small 
(comparatively) is the number of human 
lives. But some notion of this, however 
inadequate, may be gathered from the vast 
assemblages of animals occasionally men- 
tioned in Natural Histories and Voyages, 
among which last, such congregations are 



Sect. IL1 ON IMMORTALITY. 87 

repeatedly noticed by Captain Cook, as 
amounting to an " incredible number" 

It is natural to think that those who have 
been thrown into situations to contemplate 
such scenes as these, are most likely to be 
drawn into an extensive and general compa- 
rison, su :h as that I have undertaken ; and 
they may therefore be expected to be earli- 
est in it: though, when attention is once 
called to the subject, the fact may be ren- 
dered sufficiently evident, even in those 
countries where animal existence is far less 
varied, extensive, and luxuriant. — —But 
indeed we find the general fact is too striking 
even in our own country, to have escaped 
the philosophic eye, although it has Usually 
eluded that of the ordinary observer. For 
it appears from the authorities already 
quoted, that the same general fact was ob- 
served by them ; probably without any bet- 
ter means of judging than are afforded by 
our own climate. 



S3 AN ESSAY [Sett. II. 

It would, however, be doing great injus- 
tice to the subject, to omit calling the reader s 
attention strongly to the circumstance, that 
in many situations, especially in great towns, 
the true picture and dimensions of animal 
happiness cannot be seen : and, even, were 
it formed else-where, it must, in the bosom 
of a great city*, soon fade in our imagination, 
—Letting alone the prejudice we draw 
from observing the treatment of hack horses, 
and some other animals, (which evil, we for- 
get, is accidental to the individual suffer- 
ers, and not essential to their species) it may be 
observed, that in a walk, in the fields near 
London, if a man happen to encounter two 
or three forlorn crows, and a single hawk, or 
any bird other than a sparrow, he may go 
home and relate his surprising adventures. 
And, as to meeting with an unreclaimed 
animal of any other kind, I apprehend such 
a prodigy would be chronicled in the re- 
gisters of the day. How, then, would 



Sect. II.] ON IMMORTALITY. 89 

the inhabitant of this great city be asto- 
nished were he, at once, transported to a 
region, where the variety of animals under 
his eye must be great and the number be- 
yond all description ; — where the pheno- 
mena of their sizes, figures, colours, cries, 
and motions, are endlessly diversified, and 
yet, the feelings of all these beings are spe- 
cifically identified under the word HAP- 
PINESS. 

" Yea the Stork in the heaven knoweth 
" her appointed times, and the Turtle, and 
" the Crane, and the Swallow observe the 
" times of their coming ; but my people 
" know not the judgments of their God." 



i 



N 



90 



AN ESSAY 



[\Scct. III. 



SECTION THIRD. 

OF CONSIDERATIONS WHICH HAVE OPERATED 
UPON THOSE WHO HAVE NOTICED THE COM- 
PARATIVE FACT, AND PREVENTED THEM 
FROM APPLYING IT. 

Xf the views in this Section prove well 
founded, they may explain why we have not 
earlier found a more perfect moral argument 
for a future state. The reasons which I 
suppose to have operated against it, are 
chiefly these: 

FIRST.— The Hypothesis of « a scale of 
" beings, filling all the room in Creation;" — 
and, consequently, the not discriminating 



Sect. Ill/] ON IMMORTALITY. 91 

that the laws of mind, on this Earth, are not 
all of one System, like the laws of body ; 
but consist of two very different systems, 
insomuch that the happiness of any species 
of beings may be made great, or little, ac- 
cording as this species has been placed in 
one, or other, of these two systems. 

SECONDLY. — The supposition that every 
species in the scale of beings must exist ; each 
species being necessary for the good of the 
whole. 

These two considerations seem to be of 
the first moment ; but there are two others 
which it may be also proper to notice. These 
are, 

THIRDLY. — The notion that the dig- 
nity of reason is degraded by supposing it 
less fit, than instinct, to make us happy on 
i, earth. 

FOURTHLY.— A speculative question, 
how far it appears probable, from the ac- 
knowledged attributes of GOD, that fre 

n 2 



92 AN ESSAY QSect. III. 

would here confer upon instinctive Creatures 
greater happiness, than upon man. ' 

THE FIRST. — With regard to the first 
of these four considerations, it is, in the out- 
set, necessary to observe, that the acknow- 
ledged utility of General Laws in Nature 
seems to present rather a check to our hopes 
of a future state, as these Laivs have hitherto 
been viewed, that is to say, together with a 
supposition that all the minds on Earth are 
involved in one system. — For, confessedly, 
such is the grand benefit of general laws to} 
the ivhole series of species in all created 
worlds, that we could not expect they 
should be unhinged to save some individuals, 
of one species, from a liability to accidents 
involved by those general causes of good ; 
and therefore one may think it fit, that these 
should take their chance, even though there 
were no after provision made for such acci- 
dental sufferers. 

In this supposition, which Sceptics mig]|t 



Sect. Ill/] ON IMMORTALITY. £)3 

stick upon as the case has been viewed, I do 
but agree with those who have treated the 
Laws of Nature, as the reader may observe 
by the following concise statement of Bishop 

Cumberland, in his Chap. I. Sect. 19, 

" When we treat of good or evil, with re- 
w lation to the laws of Nature, we regard not 
"the body, or mind, of any particular man, 
" or of a few, because the suffering or punish- 
" ment of these may sometimes contribute to 
" public good." — Now the public good here 
meant, is that of the human species only ; and, 
if the public good of one species can justify 
the sufferings of a few men, how vastly must 
the sufferings of these few men be justified 
if there be only one system of general laws, 
which could not be deranged to save them, 
without incurring evil to all the species of 
minds in Creation. 
Upon this aspect of the case, we perceive 
how highly important it must be to establish, 



<H AN ESSAY £Sect. III. 

that there are actually two systems, in either 
of which man might have been placed, with- 
out detriment to the whole of Creation ; and 
therefore, that there is no necessity, either 
from general laws, or from the good of tlie 
whole, that man should suffer as he does. 

Without diverging so far as to the opinions 
of Atheists, the supposition among Theists 
of there being but one system of minds, on 
Earth, is as broad as from J)r. Priestley, 
who laboured to prove that we have no hope 
but through Christianity, to Lord Boling- 
broke, who wrote to deny both soul and Chris- 
tianity ; and as high as the highest assertors 
of the dignity and hopes of man. — Both the 
above named champions of their respective 
schemes held, virtually, the same doctrine of 
marts mind. The former supposed us to dif- 
fer from brutes, more in our bodies than our 
minds : the latter asserted that the faculties 
of a man's mind differ from those of a brute, 



Sect. Ill/] ON IMMORTALITY. 95 

not in kind, but in degree ; and, that " brutes 
" must necessarily have, in kind, every faculty 

" that we are possessed of." Now here, 

by the way, I should like to know if these 
brutes have, in kind, the faculty of conceiv- 
ing that they have a vital principle which 
shall live in another state; if they conceive 
another state, — ^Creator, — an invisible judge, 
— a responsibility, — or any of a great variety 
of such considerations.— Yet, letting this 
alone, if such doctrine be true, it is certain 
there is but one system of mental laws, — or 
one or der of minds upon this Earth. But, 
besides what I merely hinted metaphysically 
to the contrary (Sect. 1. Page 10, and 11,) 
this doctrine is so far from being true in 
moral consequence, that the instant it is no- 
ticed that man, by being changed to an in- 
stinctive animal, would throw offhh load of 
foresights and retrospects, — his moral elections 
and all their multifarious miseries, — his busy 
faculty of creating factitious want and evils. 



yo AN ESSAY CSect. III. 

— and his great load of bodily evils of lux- 
ury and vanity, ALL arising in reason; — 
the moment, I say, that this is noticed, and 
that, instead of all this, the man would move 
content in his narrow sphere of instinct, clear 
of all baneful attractions of reason, we see 
that THERE ARE ACTUALLY TWO 
SYSTEMS of minds, containing vastly dif- 
ferent portions of earthly happiness; and 
therefore, that there is no necessity from the 
operation of general laws, that mankind 
should have been made so miserable. 

Upon this (grant but a good Governor 
of the world) we confidently discern, that 
man was placed in the higher class as a ne- 
cessary preparation for a higher state. 

But, the confounding of the two Systems 
is not the doctrine of those only who deny 
our natural capacity for a future state. For 
the desired distinction has not been syste- 
matically described, nor consistently claimed, 
(far less has it been used to furnish a more 



Sect. III.") ON IMMORTALITY. 97 

philosophical moral argument) by those, even, 
who have been highest in favor of our hopes, 

« It is true, the assertors of the natural 

dignity of the human mind, distinguish at 
all times between rational beings and instinc- 
live beings. It is also manifest that, from 
many high hands we have, of each, some one 
insular confession that brutes are happier 
than men, and that they are so from wanting 
moral elections, foresight, &c. Nay more, 
the same authorities actually make the fact 
an auxiliary or secondary argument for our 

hopes. This is, in point of fact, the very 

basis upon which I also stand; and there- 
fore I assume no novelty, nor differ from 
those as to foundation.-™— —Rut what 1 ob- 
ject here is, that notwithstanding these de- 
tached particular confessions, those very par* 
ties virtually contradict all this, by maintain- 
ing the great hypothesis of " a scale of be- 
" ings an hypothesis which from its mag* 

nitude swallows up all their particular con- 

o 



98 AN ESSAY QSect. III. 

cessions, and implies only one system of 
minds. 

The very language of the hypothesis, — 
" a scale of beings/ 5 — implies but one sys- 
tem. And who, from this denomination, 
would imagine what is the fact, — that ra- 
tional man, and instinctive brutes, actually 
move in systems as distinct from each other, 
in regai^d of happiness, as do the planets of 
our Solar System from those of any other 
visible fixed star. — But the confound- 
ing of the two systems, into one, is made cir- 
cumstantially complete, as we may observe 
by the following passage from Mr. Addison, 
who is quoted with approbation for having 
illustrated the order of the supposed scale. — 
This writer, in the course "of a long and 
beautiful description of the ascent of the 
scale, has the following remark- — - u The 
" whole chasm in Nature, from a plant to a 
" man, is filled up with diverse kinds of crea- 
u tures, rising one above another by such a 



Sect. Ill/] ON IMMORTALITY. 99 

" gentle and easy ascent, that the little transi- 
il tions and deviations, from one species to 
" another, are almost insensible." 

Now, IF WE EXCEPT MAN, this de- 
scription is just, or even less than just; be- 
cause, in every other species the gradation 
is not only " almost," but quite insensible. 
But when this fine writer includes MAN in 
the insensible ascent, I have no hesitation to 
declare it a monstrous violation of the truth 
of Nature. — The single glance I have just 
taken at the several great departments of 
misery, which man would escape by being 
made an instinctive animal, proves the breach 
of the chain, a thousand fold ; and shows 
that " the chasm in Nature" is not filled up ; 

no, not by an immeasureable distance. It 

was therefore a great oversight in Addi- 
son to assert it ; and whoever admits his il- 
lustration, as philosophically just, must in so 
doing deny that reason, and instinct, are the 

names of two different systems :— But, it is 
o 2 



100 AN ESSAY LSect. Ill 

the object of my present speculation to 
prove that they are tivo ; — that the distinc- 
tion is real, and great, and vitally important 
to our hopes. 

After adverting to the above passage of 
3Ir. Addison, (which I have copied from its 
place in the notes to the " Essay on the on- 
gin of Evil") the reader can have no doubt 
that the hypothesis of a scale of beings is in- 
consistent, with the confessions of fact made 
by its advocates that sensitive beings possess; 
very different conditions of existence, ac- 
cording as they are placed under the go- 
vernment and operation of reason, or of in- 
stinct : I say inconsistent ; because it must 
be absurd to talk of the evils of reason, and 
good of instinct, as two contrasted natures, 
if the change from an instinctive being, to a 
rational one, is but an insensible step ; or, 
if there be no more distance between a mon- 
key and a man, than from an ox to a horse. — 
Such a "filling of the chasm " leaves no 



Sect, ON IMMORTALITY. 101 

room to change man, to happier than he is 
here: — and, as to any hope of hereafter, 
what can he expect if every species exists 
of necessity, for the good of the whole, which 
is a good so vast, as may fully justify his 
accidental sufferings ? 

If it be requisite to place this matter in a 
stronger light, let us observe what is the 
doctrinal result of the hypothesis in question. 
First. — It is true, it has not prevented its 
advocates from fairly admitting the earthly 
advantage of brutes over men ; from which, 
I have already said, they have indeed drawn 
some degree of hope. But, it has prevented 
them from making any better of this fact, 
than a mere makeweight, which they throw 
into the scale after they have exhausted all 
their reasons from the human species alone, 
Now, truly the human species is near- 
est the eye of every man ; and every ordinary 
man observes the inequality of happiness in 
this species, and readily inclines to think it 



102 AN ESSAY [Sect, ill 

good ground of hope. But the opinion of 
the world is, and ever will be governed, di- 
rectly or indirectly, by the philosophic class; 
and what is more, the morals of mankind will 
ever be deeply affected by the sceptic band 
in this class ; and it is this band we must dis- 
comfit, else we do nothing. Here, then, 

if we present the Sceptic with the argument 
drawn from the human species alone, he will 
say, Gentlemen, your own hypothesis of a 
Scale of beings, every species of which must 
exist for the good of the whole, is a complete 
bar to your hopes ; because you thereby 
make the existence of man necessary, while 
the fact of one man suffering more than ano- 
ther is, confessedly, but accidental. -If 

now, upon this, you add,— O, but we do not 
argue from the human species alone, for be- 
hold the brute species are happier than the 
species man. The Sceptic will reply, — If the 
brutes are happier, you do not show me how 
it could possibly have been otherwise : You 



Sect. Ill/] ON IMMORTALITY. 103 

make but one scale of beings, each species of 
which must exist for the good of the whole ; 
therefore, the greater suffering of any one 
species (suppose it man) becomes only a par- 
ticular evil, and is no more to be consi- 
dered when your argument is the whole of 
Creation, than the sufferings of a few men 
when the argument is the human species alone. 

Thus, whether the argument be contracted 
to our own species, or enlarged to the whole 
Creation, the Sceptic has a fair plea against 
our hope, if there be but one system, neces- 
sarily existing. — But if, instead of this, we 
show him (as 1 hope to do ) that the exist- 
ence of man is not necessary ; — and, that 
his sufferings as a species, more than brutes, 
are not accidental, but are the conse- 
quence of being, for some wise end, placed 
under another System of general laws, he 
then will have nothing left to object, and 
cannot deny that a moral hope arises from it, 
unless he be a downright atheist, and deny 



m AN ESSAY TSect. 111. 

that the world is the work of a good Being, 
at alL 

The following matter is connected with, 
and will farther illustrate the importance of 
the present subject 

THE SECOND REASON. The 

supposition of every species of beings exist- 
ing necessarily, or unalterably, for the good of 
the whole Creation, is one which seems to 
have operated far, and wide ; and it must be 
exploded here, as being highly prejudicial, 
while fortunately it seems now to be totally 
disproved by facts. 

Archbishop King has maintained this doc- 
trine at large ; and it has been asserted by 
various popular writers, among whom, be- 
sides Mr. Addison as already mentioned, 
we find the admired poet, Thomson, whose 
creed herein I shall quote, because it mi- 
nutely shows how rigid is the demand of the 
hypothesis, for the existence of every species, 
small, as well as great, 



Sect III/] 



ON IMMORTALITY. 



, -_« with all 

41 Those rolling spheres that from on high shed down 
" Their kindly influence : not these alone 
" Which strike ev'n eyes incurious ; but each moss. 
" Each shell, each crawling insect holds a rank 
" Important in the plan of Him who fram'd 
" This scale of beings : holds a rank, which lost 
" Would break the chain, and leave behind a gap 
" Which nature's self would rue." 

Mi*. Pope, too, seems to hold the same 
philosophy ; and, by the well merited popu- 
larity of all these writers, this belief of an 
unalterable fulness of minds in Creation; 
has perhaps become the creed of all reading 
classes. 

Now First. T object, that the hypo- 
thesis in question (though not so intended) 
questions the Power of GOP, by supposing 
that he could not make all this vast Cre- 
ation, without making the good of the w hole 
depend on the unalterable stability of all its 
minute parts. 

Secondly. It degrades the humaft 

mind most unjustifiably, by treating it o$ 

v 



106 AN ESSAY QSect. III. 

but a link of one unbroken chain of animal 
beings ; though we know that the break 
sudden, and the distance between the part is 
immense, decidedly proving that no such 
chain was designed, or is requisite. — By the 
way, while the figure of a chain or scale, is 
before us, I cannot avoid observing again, 
what a preposterous appearance it gives to 
Nature's work. Monkies hanging next links 
to men, though at an immense distance from 
them ; while from monkies downward, we 
observe a close consecution and gradual re- 
duction of minds, each following link being 
so near in size, and shape to that next above, 
that it is only by stepping over several at 
once, that we can discern any difference of 
intellect; — a chain whose growing diminution 
is so beautifully regular, and exquisitely mi- 
nute, that we are lost in admiration in re- 
flecting upon it, for behold it we cannot.— — 
Surely those who consider this chain must 
believe, that Nature works very strangely. 



Sect. III. J ON IMMORTALITY. 107 

when she could not continue her plan, or 
find any intermediate stuff to fill up that im- 
mense chasm from monkies, or elephants, to 
man, so as to make her chain all of apiece. 
— Had she indeed meant man for this chain, 
we may be assured, the work would have 
been gradual, or uniformly proportioned. 

Let it not here be thought that I under- 
value the sagacity of instinctive tribes. — Set- 
ting* aside those lesser animals which pos- 
sess a heavenly-high instinct, I have often ob- 
served, and admired, those who act by a 
lower reason, especially our next brother 
link, the monkey : And, after giving each its 
due, I assert, there is a greater chasm between 
monkies and men, than between mice, and 
monkies. 

Thirdly. But, to decide the question 

as to the necessity of existence, we now learn 

from the reports of Naturalists, and from 

our better knowledge of the interior parts of 

the several continents, that animals have, at 
p 2 



it* AN ESSAY [\Sect. HT. 

some time, existed on this Earth, whose species 
exist no longer. -» This discovery, unless it 
can be disputed, (of which there appears not 
the least probability) must set the question 
at rest, by proving the hypothesis of a neces- 
sary chain of animal beings to be wholly 
void of foundation in fact ; and I apprehend 
it is a discovery which may be hailed, as of 
the most welcome importance to us, in re- 
gard to a moral argument for a future state. 

Let it be observed with due respect, that 
the hypothesis against which I bring this de- 
cisive evidence, was made up to the state of 
natural knowledge at the time. — It accords 
with very wide conceptions of GOD s good- 
ness ; and is certainly at least countenanced 
by an appearance of fullness in the Creation, 
insomuch that, in a loose sense, we may al- 
ways talk of a chain of beings, or of a 
plenitude of minds : Yet it must be owned, 
there never were means of investigating the 
question, on that side, so as to furnish its ad- 



Soot. IH.] ON IMMORTALITY. 10i> 

vocates more than a mere conjecture ; which 
might at any time have been questioned, 
even were there no evidence against it. And, 
as I have already noticed, the advances 
which have been made in natural knowledge 
since those days when the notion of a chain or 
fullness of minds ivas adopted, presents a to- 
tally new prospect of the designs, or economy 
of Creation, vastly different from what 
could have been entertained by those earlier 
inquirers. 

Upon this change of prospect, it behoves 
us henceforward in our moral inquiry, to 
remember, that instead of saying with Mr. 
Pope, — " beast teas made for man, and man 
"for beast ,"— we have to say, man -was made 
for himself, and beasts for themselves; and 
that either one, or both, may be, or not be, 
at GOD's pleasure, without the least incon- 
venience to the whole of Creation* 

* For a satisfactory report of the state of this inquiry, 
the reader may consult M. Cuvier's "Essay on the 



liu 'AN ESSAY [Sect. III. 

In the present view of things, therefore, 
unless evidence arise to contradict the deci- 
sions of naturalists, we must necessarily ad- 
mit that any species of animal might as well 
have been omitted in Creation, or be now done 
away, as those which are actually found to 
be missing : and in this case there can be no 
shadow of pretence, ivith philosophers, to 
deny that MAN might be of this number. — 
It is equally obvious, that since the existence 
of no particular animal is requisite for the 
good of the whole, therefore man might as 
well have been made (had GOD so pleased) 

" Theory of the Earth," recently given to the En- 
glish reader, and from which the following opinion is tran- 
scribed. From all these considerations it may be con- 

" eluded, as shall be more minutely explained in the sequel, 
41 that none of the large species of quadrupeds, whose re- 
" mains are now found imbedded in regular rockey strata, 

" are at all similar to any of the known living species ; 

" That this circumstance is by no means the mere effect of 
* 4 chance, or because the species to which these fossil bones 
" have belonged, are still concealed in the desert and un- 
" inhabited parts of the world, and have hitherto escaped 
" the observation of travellers; but, that this astonishing 
" phenomenon has proceeded from general causes/' 



Sect. Ill/] ON IMMORTALITY. Ill 

with iiis present organic body, and a mind 
equal to, or a little above, that of an ele- 
phant ; with whicli I argue, and so many high 
authorities admit, he would have been hap- 
pier, as an earthly being, than he noiv is. 

The explosion of the hypothesis of an un- 
alterable scale of minds existing for the 
good of the ivhole, is of the utmost impor- 
tance here. — The conclusions to which it led 
are these, That it is better that any species 
of beings should be less happy than it might 
be, than that such "species of beings should 
" be ivanting to the world — And — " that 
" there could have been no partial alteration 
" of this system, but for the worse as far as 

" we know ; at least not for the better." 

Here now let us observe, that the main rea- 
son why it was supposed there could be no 
alteration but for the worse, is the good of 
" the world. 5 '— Therefore the hypothesis 
seems not merely to say, that when any spe- 



lte AN ESSAY [[Sect* IIL 

ties was created, it was fitly to make a small 
sacrifice* or suffer a little evil, for the good 
of the whole* in order to the enjoyment of 
great good itself ; in some such way, as a 
man in civilised society gives up a part of 
his natural liberty, for the sake of great be- 
nejit to HIMSELF 5 but if he chose to 
withdraw* society could do as well without 
him. — The case here supposed is quite dif- 
ferent ; for it seems, by the hypothesis, that 
every species that has been created, must exist 
at all events, rather than that any one species 
should be "wanting to EWORLD ;" — which 
want we also see, Thomson says, " Nature s 
" self would rue'' 

Now, were there indeed any such neces- 
sity for the unalterable existence of every 
created species, I think Human Nature 
might rue : For it would seem to threaten 
our moral hopes, seeing that our. lot as a spe- 
cies, whether happy or unhappy, might well 



3cct. 111.3 ON IMMORTALITY. 113 

be supposed to be made subservient to so vast 
a consideration, as the good o/'all created 
WORLDS. 

I suppose every thing that exists is adapted 
to the other parts of Creation ; but I must 
certainly conclude that the WHOLE is in 
finitely too grand a contrivance, to have its 
good dependent upon the unalterableness 
of all its minute parts* 

It is here to be stated, that as a compensa-* 
tion for the supposed necessity of existence, the 
scheme thus opposed makes an equitable 
supposition, that no species has been created 
so imperfect, but that the good of its earthly 
state at least out-balances the evil, in some 
degree. — Now 1 will not here rigidly inquire 
whether the advocates of that scheme have 
not, in some of their detached admissions, ques- 
tioned the fact of this good balance : but I 
will observe, that supposing the balance to bz 

good, ESPECIALLY IN REGARD of the HUMAN 

species,, the Sceptic is thereby furnished with 

o 



iU AN ESSAY TSect. IIL 

a double plea. For if man exists, first, for 
so good a purpose as the good of the whole; 
—and if, besides this, his happiness more 
than equals his misery ; what right has he 
to expect a future state of reward on the 
ground of GOD's justice, since he is already 
a debtor for a balance of good! 

I so far agree with the scheme in question 
as to suppose, That no change would be for 
the better but such changes as actually do take 
place;— That "whatever is, is right" in the 
grandest or ultimate view; — and , That one 
Instance of this is displayed in the better 
adaptation of the human mind for another 
state, than for this one,— But, as it seems 
now reduced to a fact of experience that 
ALTERATIONS do take place, without in- 
jury to the whole, we perceive that the noblest 
of earthly beings might have been left out 
without any evil to Creation : and there- 
fore, no man but a downright atheist, none 
who believe in the existence of a GOOD 



SecLlILj ON IMMORTALITY* 116 

INTELLIGENCE ruling this world, 
can possibly suppose HE would have cre- 
ated by far the nobler beings* to be more mi- 
serable than the basest, if this were the ulti- 
mate state. 

The reason of mans suffering from his 
kigh endowments is plain : evils are their na- 
tural fruits here* Bat, Ms- receiving those en- 
dottrments is absolutely without any appa- 
rent reason, or need^ to make an earthly be- 
ing happy*— What more would any Theisi 
desire* than to have this position made plain 
and undeniable, as I trust it must be„ by all 
the evidence arising; in our comparison of 
the TWO ORDERS qf earthly minds? 

The grand points for ns to rest upon, are 
.■these,- — — 

That man does not exist for the whole 
Creation ; hut for himself. 

That he has a capacity for a Mgher siaU 

than he is now in* 

That, here, he would have been happier 
q2 



II* AN SSSAT QSect. III. 

in a lower order; that is, with a noble in- 
stinct instead of reason. 

That changes, or removals of species, actu- 
ally do take place on Earth. 

And, That there is room enough for him in 

the INSTINCTIVE ORDER. 

If these positions prove sound, no Theist 
can doubt why man is placed in the higher 
and more miserable order, rather than in the 
lower and happier. 

THE THIRD REASON to beconsidered 

in this Section, regards the dignity of reason 
itself.— Upon this I think little need be said. 
It can be no disparagement of reason to sup- 
pose it more fit for a higher sphere of action, 
than a lower one : The nobler thing, of 
every kind, is usually less fit for the more 
mean ofiice, or situation. 

So noble a thing is reason ; and so much 
pride as well as various pleasure, does it af- 
ford us, together with its vast and innume- 



Sect. 111.3 ON IMMORTALITY. 117 

rable evils, that it is only in comparison 
with instinct that we could possibly form a 

just estimate. Had no instinctive order 

of beings existed to afford us this occasion, 
or, had the change been gradual from one 
order to the other, we should have had 
no land-mark in this search, — no moral ar- 
gument from essentials, which (be thanks to 
GOD) we now have in a very high and sig- 
nificant blazon of two different orders. — — 

When different objects are given to our 
view, comparisons of various kinds may 
arise. — The elephant is a tractable, a useful, 
and, above all, a noble animal; he bears his 
rider on high, towering over all other crea- 
tures ; and affords him, as he goes, a view 
of the surrounding world, upon which he 
may look commanding down : But, for the 
general low drudgery of man's service, 
the horse y or even the humble ass f is much 

better adapted, or more fit. Then why 

should not reason be found less fit than in- 



32* AN ESSAY iStct, fH„ 

stmci*, for this- earthly state, if it be the low- 
est,, and most unfit 9 of two spheres m which 
Bian is to act. 

The FOURTH REASON is, as to the 
probability from the acknowledged attributes 
GGD 5 that Instinctive animals should he 
made happier than roan^ om Earth.— Now,, 
we hare seea that there are vesry obvious 
and unavoidable reasons for the far greater 
pari of human misery r since most of it arises 
ie the moral liberty of mtm^ and ihe involved 
eviis &f foresight and retrospect*— We there- 
fore most confess the fitness of it to at least 
a very considerable extent* — Let then 
tern and ask* what reasons; appear that. 
brutes should be made miserable* who are 
void of both liberty and forethmgkt ; of un~ 
derstanding* and of hlame* 

There appear to me but four conceivable 
reasons for placing sensitive beings on this 
Earth.-— It is either as a gift of happiness;— 



Sect IILj ON IMMORTALITY , % 1 9 

a state- of trial; — of reward; or, of punish- 
ment: unless indeed we suppose it some 
compound of these. — -Now the mere Theist 
must naturally suppose that man, being en- 
dowed with moral capacity, is placed here 
to suffer in some degree, if only in the way 
of probation : and the believer in Revelation 
is bound to consider his species as having 
transgressed, and justly sentenced to suffer, 
in this life at least. — But both these reason- 
ers must equally admit, that brutes, (having 
no moral capacity ) can neither be placed here 
for probation, nor have deserved punishment 
unless for some former life. Therefore, nei- 
ther of them can think it right that instinc- 
tive creatures should suffer more of evil than 
is rendered unavoidable by their organic 
condition, if there be no better reason than 
to keep countenance with human misery. 

Perhaps no man doubts the happiness of a 
dog caressed by every body,— proud and se* 
cure in the friendship of his master,— and 



120 AN ESSAY [Sect. III. 

continually grateful and content. — This ani- 
mal's life is one scene of good ; and yet no 
one ever thought of feeling discontent at ob- 
serving his happiness. — No well disposed 
person ever feels chagrined at beholding the 
happiness of any harmless brute ; and, since 
we approve the thing in every particular in- 
stance that comes under our view, we can 
not philosophically object to it as a general 
fact. 

The confessions of all ages are united as 
to the fact that good men are often subjected 
to great miseries, while the wicked live tri- 
umphant — Now, if it were for us to judge, 
at all, of this, we must surely think it more 
jit that innocent brutes should be happy, than 
that wicked men should prosper in their 
wickedness. 

The usual feeling that arises with us upon 
any view of animal life, is to sympathise with 
it. If we see a brute in distress, we are 
pained, and would kindly offer relief.— 



Sect. III.] ON IMMORTALITY. 121 

Again, when the lamb, or the kid, skips on 
the green, ot the birds revel in the trees, 
we are made happier by beholding them happy ^ 
even though we be distressed by our own 
state at the time. 

We may observe, that wicked and most 
dissolute men, when taken together with in- 
nocent persons for the commission of a 
crime, have often so strong a sense of right, 
and a desire also, as to express anxiety that 
the innocent may not suffer with them. How- 
much more, then, ought all good men to con-^ 
fess, that, so far as appears to us, instinctive 
animals ought to share all our sensual goods, 
for which their organs are obviously adapt- 
ed ; and at the same time be exempt from 
our moral and intellectual ills: which done, 
leaves them the advantage to a vast amount, 
so far as regards this life. 

So directly, and strongly, must the natu- 
ral justice of this come home to the bosom 
of every man, in every rank, that ? besides be* 

R 



122 AN ESSAY QSect. IIL 

ing such a conclusive evidence for our hopes, 
it affords even a strong additional evidence of 
the existence of a good GOVERNOR of 
the world, to find, that unoffending and un- 
aspiring creatures are made actually happier, 
than other creatures which are placed here 
under probation at least. 

I would not have it mistaken that I, for a 
moment, suppose the existence of GOD re- 
quires any additional evidence. But I 
deem it important in a general point of view, 
as welt as to the subject of our hopes, to 
point out, that the greater earthly happiness 
of brutes harmonizes most beautifully 
with all the other instances we observe of 
GOD's good government. And it must 
not be forgot, that whatever T, or the ge- 
nerality of men, may believe, there have 
been, and now are, in the world, some men 
unhappy enough to require additional proof, 
that they were created and are supported 
by a wise and good Being. 



Sect. IV.] 



ON IMMORTALITY. 



SECTION FOURTH. 

A TEST OF THE GROUND OF THE PRESENT 
MORAL ARGUMENT, AND A GENERAL REA- 
SON FOR THE PROBATION OF MAN. 

In order to illustrate, beyond the chance 
of misconception, the nature of the ground 
upon which this moral argument is built, it 
may be necessary to contrast it, a little far- 
ther, with a scheme which, 1 willingly con- 
fess, appears good in its first principle ; though 
I have been obliged to object to the super- 
structure reared thereon. 

The doctrine of the Evil of defect sup- 
k 2 



124 AN ESSAY [Sect. IV, 

poses that IMPERFECTION is the origin 

of all the evil in the mundane System. 

That doctrine assumes as a first principle. 
(which may he granted) that the CREATOR, 
though perfect himself, could not create any 
beings absolutely perfect, since this would he 

making the creature equal to its Creator.- 

It next supposes, that GOD saw it conveni- 
ent, that created beings should exist in a 
graduated series of imperfections, in order to 
occupy all the room in creation, so as to pro- 
duce the greatest sum of happiness ; and 
that, to effect this, each species of beings 
was made necessary for the good of the 
whole. 

The doctrine thereupon argues, that in 
proportion as any species is placed lower, or 
exists with a greater degree of imperfection, 
it must be subject to greater evil. — But, as 
an equitable provision, it supposes that no 
species is created so imperfect, but that the 
good it enjoys out-balances the evil, in some 



Sect. IV.] ON IMMORTALITY. 125 

degree ; and thus it can be no loser by being 
made for the good of the whole. 

This 1 think is all that is necessary for me 
to state here, concerning the above mention- 
ed scheme, in order to justify my own^ 
views, by pointing out that the latter are 
built upon induction ; the former upon an 
hypothesis now opposed hj facts. 

Now the advocates of this scheme of de- 
fect, argue thus against the discontented. 
If men could imagine any other contrivance, 
or, form a system wherein their state might 
be expected to be bettered, " when they have 
" done all this, and completed their system, 
" they are at best only got to the absurdity of 
" putting this system into ahigher class, where- 
*■ as all the different classes in every conceiv- 
" able degree of perfection were supposed to 

" be entirely filled at the first."- And here, 

I grant that, upon the supposition the 
doctrine of a scale of beings is true, 
this reasoning is conclusive ; for it must be 



126 AN ESSAY [Sect. IV. 

absurd to murmur that we were not made 

angels, rather than men. —Ants and flies 

would have much more reason to complain, 
since they are placed so much lower than 

we are. But let us mark, that both this 

reasoning and the doctrine of imperfection it- 
self, are evidently identified with a supposi- 
tion that HIGHER CLASS MAKES HIGHER 

happiness ; — whereas, behold, the ve?y con- 
trary is the main fact so fully proved all 
along, and which is even virtually admitted 
by the maintainers of the doctrine of defect, 
themselves. 

The moral phenomena of Nature, before 
our eyes, is a direct contradiction of the 
scheme in question, since the brute is hap- 
pier than the man. And let us observe, the 
only way that is adopted to salve this great 
sore, is to insist that man can make himself 
happier than brutes, by ELECTING some 
indifferent object in spite " of the appetites, 
"senses, and reason" Now 1 confess, I 



Sect IV .2 ON IMMORTALITY. 1S7 

never observe the mention of this power of 
election without astonishment ; but certain 
it is, that those who have not this power, 
must think with me, that the earthly miseries 
of men, more than of brutes, is a fact which 
proves, that higher classes do not, as such, 
possess higher happiness. Nay, this impor- 
tant fact is not confined to the human species. 
An Elephant is a vastly more perfect animal 
than a hog : yet I think the latter full as 
happy ; which he ought not to be according 
to the scheme of Defect. The Elephant has 
much mind, much sagacity, caution, and 
anxiety, more than the stupid and careless 
hog : he has finer feelings, although they 
may seldom be outraged. But the hog ex- 
ists in an armour of dullness, and waking 
dreams of gluttony are probably his delight^ 
when he thinks at all : He scarcely fears 
any animal, and is a signal proof that imper- 
fection is no certain source of misery. — 
Many other brutes, (and men equally) prove, 



128 AN ESSAY £Sect. IV. 

that defect of mind may rather give happiness, 

than misery. -I may here fortify this fact 

with the words of the preacher, "for in 

"much wisdom there is much grief '; and he 
" that encreaselh knowledge encreaseth sor~ 

" row." It is remarkable here, however* 

that this is language held by a wise man 
who appears to have had no view be- 
yond the goods of this life, in which, doubt- 
less, it stands a conspicuous truth ; but it may 
now be most happily contrasted with the 
knowledge which indicates a future state. 

It is plain, from what is stated, that any 
such absurdity as that of desiring to have 
mankind admitted in a higher class, to at- 
tain higher happiness, cannot be changed to 
my views. — My argument on the contrary 
is, the vast seeming impropriety, of a lower 
order possessing higher happiness ; which 
is a state of things the very opposite to that 
which the doctrine of defect supposes; — a 
grand enigma of Nature, which, we see, 



Sect. IV.3 ON IMMORTALITY. m 

the doctrine of defect only attempts to 
solve by a supposed power of election ; but 
which beautifully solves itself upon the sup- 
position that we are the only beings, on 
Earth, in a state of probation for a future 
life. 

Besides this, we see, the doctrine of defect 
supposes we could not have been made 
happy in the class of angels, (though we are 
actually fit for it,) because there is no room in 
that class. — Good.— But since the removal 
of some genera and species of brutes has ac- 
tually made room belotv, we might certainly 
have been made happier in the lower class, 
had not a higher destiny forbad it. 

I state these considerations in order that 
I may not be charged with a visionary scheme, 
of supposing that man might have been made 
happier on earth, by being made higher in 
his Nature. — We see that the doctrine which 
forbids this absurdity is far more liable to be 

called visionary, because it rests its reason 

s 



130 AN ESSAY QSect. IV. 

ing upon a presumption, here exploded, that 
higher beings are happier ; and because one 
half the classes in this scheme are but ima- 
ginary beings, or, at the most, beings whose 
nature we do not certainly know, and there- 
fore all speculation upon them must be 
merely conjectural : But, ive do know apes, 
and elephants, and various other happy in- 
stinctive beings, which furnish us a real 
comparison ; and upon this reality is my 
argument founded. 

We come now to the SECOND subject 
of the present Section ; a subject hitherto 
vastly more important than profitable to the 
inquirer ; to account for the permission of our 
most exceptionable evils by an omnipotent 
good CREATOR.— The evils which fall 
under this description, are chiefly the intel- 
lectual and moral. 

The moral argument before the reader is 



Sect. IV.1 ON IMMORTALITY. 131 

grounded, all along, upon the supposition 
that, at the very least, the existence of an in- 
telligent and good FIRST CAUSE is 
granted. — The desperate pitch of scepticism 
which doubts this assumption, is very far 
more rare, than that degree which is satisfied 
as to a good CREATOR, but nevertheless 
doubts mans immortality upon any ground, 
whether philosophical or religious. But un- 
happily there does exist such a desperate 
scepticism as the former ; and it is chiefly 
built upon the excessive evils of human life. 
Now, although it is the half believer, the 
wavering thinker, and the qualified sceptic 
who doubts only the immortality of man, that 
I have nearest in view, in this moral argu- 
ment ; I do not think I can hurt a despe- 
rate man by offering him a consideration 
which at least appears suited to his lament- 
able case. I will therefore suppose a 
Sceptic of this last description to express 

himself thus. ~— — — Your moral argu- 1 

s 2 



13S AN ESSAY [[Sect. IV, 

ment, drawn from a comparison of the two 
orders of minds, and the greater earthly ad- 
vantage of the lower order, would satisfy me 
provided it were also shown, why a good 
CREATOR ought to have subjected man 
to probation, instead of creating him happy 
at once ; but, unless this be shewn, I may 
doubt the goodness of the designer, and 
therefore doubt the reality of your supposed 
future recompense.— What I plainly see is, 
that life, especially hitman life, is full of mi- 
sery : tell me, then, how I am to know from 
this that the design is good? Give me a 
reason why man ought to be placed here 
first, to be thus proved; and I may then 
trust to your hypothetical hereafter. 

To this severe question, the doctrine of 
Defect answers, First,*— " it manifestly ap- 
44 pears to be better that we should contend 
" with the present evils, than that the Earth 



* Essay on the Origin of Evil, Chap. 5, 



Sect. IV.] ON IMMORTALITY. 133 

" should be void of all rational inhabitants." — 
Next, That human evils are better than " to 
" take human nature entirely away." — Third- 
ly, That it is necessary we should be prepared 
here, " as plants in a nursery." — Besides all 
which, it is principally argued, on the hypo- 
thesis of a scale, That there was no room 
in Heaven when man was made ; and though 
his mind is capable of the place of angels, 
it would have been unjust to displace them 
without fault— Farther, if by the fall of an- 
gels, room is made for man ; those only who 
have shewn merit, ought to be promoted. 
But, says the Sceptic, Every one of these 

reasons is - but mere hypothesis. I 

see there is both room and changes below , 
without any hurt to the world; and there- 
fore have a right to suppose room above. 
But what is more, in plain consideration 
of your scheme, I find that Jiappiness de- 
scends as the class ascends- To compen- 
sate for this, you indeed tell me that I have 



13i AN ESSAY CSect. IV. 

a power to elect my own happiness, — a 
power which you call " the greatest good, and 

" that ivhereby man excel other animals" 

" the second property of which is, that it is 
" able to oppose the natural appetites, senses, 
" and reason, and can please itself in the oppo- 
" sition." — I answer, You may as well tell me 
I have a power to elect myself six miles high. 
— You admit that bating this power the 
brutes are better off, here, than man :— and 
upon this last, which 1 inductively find to be 
the melancholy truth, I must doubt the good* 

ness of the whole design. Even if your 

scheme were not contradicted by fact, I have 
liberty to doubt any hypothetical proof of 
GOD's goodness, and I demand an inductive 
proof: I will not cavil, or insist on a justifi- 
cation of every particular objectionable 
point; but expect some general argument 
to show that the Creation is good according 
to our notions, w hich is the only way we Jiave 
of judging GOD's attributes.- In fine, I 



Sect. IV.3 ON IMMORTALITY. m 

make the evils of human life my grand ob- 
jection : satisfy me why this evil ought to 
have been. 

Here, in order that it may not be thought 
I give my own precise sentiments in the 
name of a Sceptic, I avow that the immense 
ocean of instances of power, wisdom, and 
unity op design, in which the contempla- 
tive mind seems as it were to float ; and, 

the GREAT PREPONDERANCE OF GOOD in the 

whole series of animal species, would (if there 
were no other evidence,) fully satisfy me that 
the GREAT AUTHOR of all is good : 
But it is the^ inveterate Sceptic, whose opi- 
nions have in so many instances poisoned 
the hopes of other men, who is here to be 
satisfied, or silenced if possible. 

First then, let us properly advert that 
one of the foregoing reasons given for the pro- 
bation of man, is, in fact, an inductive reason ; 
meaning that habits of virtue are necessary 
even to the enjoyment of the pleasures of 



tffi AN ESSAY QSect. IV, 

Heaven, were we there : and this reason ap- 
pears unanswerable when applied to man's 
actual state, as we find him; since a man of 
vicious habits, certainly, could no more feel 
happy in the virtuous manners of Heaven,, 
than a blackguard in the society and 

manners of a gentleman. — It is but 

another way of expressing this reason, 
when 'tis said, we are placed on Earth like 
"plants in a Nursery." 

But here our Sceptic objects, saying, I de- 
mand to know WHY were we created so 
much as liable to vicious habits. — Why not 
born good ; and then all this dreadful scene 
had been avoided ? — Natural evils might take 
their unavoidable course ; but, WHY ADD 
intellectual and moral miseries ? 

To this, it has indeed been answered, that 
habits are formed by a succession of acts, and 
therefore, as acts, they cannot be inspired. — 
But here I must object, that I think this de- 
fence cannot silenqe a Sceptic of that depth 



Sect IV.3 ON IMMORTALITY. 13. 

which I am now supposing to contend. 
— The word inspired, to serve its purpose, 
must here mean gifted in any way : and we 
find that many men are actually so happily 
gifted by Nature, as to suffer scarce any anx- 
ieties; and others, so as to commit scarce any 
offences. Farther, such gifts might, if God 
pleased, encrease in degree, and be common 
to all the species. This is a position so unde- 
niable, that it is vain to say we could not have 
been made with good dispositions. In- 
deed it is evident, that the necessity of gain- 
ing virtuous habits, or the supposed impos- 
sibility of men being born good, has not been 
thought so strong as could be wished by its 
advocates, since it is only brought in as an 
after or secondary consideration to the hypo- 
thetical plea of "a necessary scale of be- 
•* ings," and " no room in Heaven" 

Since, therefore, the above defence, so far 
as it is inductive, does not amount to prove 
what is desired, namely that the evils in 

T 



138 AN ESSAY fSect. IV, 

question could not have been avoided, it still 
remains a vast desideratum to know some 
good reason why they are permitted. 

Here now nothing appears left but to con- 
sult THE TWO ORDERS, to answer the 
Sceptic the best way I can. — And in the 
first place I would say to this man, that the 
whole inductive tenor of my present under- 
taking, furnishes a general evidence o/GOD's 
goodness ; which is the only point he de- 
mands to have ascertained, abstractly con- 
sidered. 1 have already argued, and 

shall do so more in detail, that the innu- 
merable tribes of brutes are far happier than 
ihey are usually thought to be ; and I desire 
the infidel's attention to the fact that brute 
life is so inconceivably numerous upon earth, 
that the ivhole sum of happiness must be 

adorably vast. Let him but observe, that 

the whole number of the human race, to that 
of all brutes, perhaps does not stand in the 
ratio of one to millions ; and, as each happy 



Sect IV. 2 ON IMMORTALITY. 139 

individual is one in happiness, whether it be 
large, or small, human misery seems but a 
very partial evil. — Now, all those writers 
who have supposed man to be by any earthly 
means happier than brutes, have thereby 
thrown away this vast evidence of GOD's 
goodness upon the whole ; but I offer it to 
the infidel, as an inductive and undeniable 
proof. 

But, returns the Sceptic, I am not yet 
wholly satisfied. — If brutes are so infinitely 
numerous, and so much happier than I once 
thought them, I still see a very strange 
enigma, — a far nobler order of beings much 
less happy than brutes.—™™ — WHY IS 
THIS ? 

At this now I turn and say, suppose no 

reason can be assigned to solve this enigma, 

enough has been inductively proved, to make 

any man of a good disposition trust the 

rest — But I do not leave the infidel thus. 

To justify Providence in thi6 case, not 
t 2 



AN ESSAY CSect. IV. 

hypothetically but inductively, is indeed a 
rare consideration ; but I think something 
would be effected if we could but only show, 
that any eligible reason exists which has 
not yet been estimated : for in this case we 
should at least prove, that the knowable rea- 
sons are not all exhausted, and we might 
well suppose that other and stronger ones 
may yet come to light. 

With this view I shall presume to promise 
the Sceptic, in the way of justification of hu- 
man trial, a reason that actually exists 
as a fact ; therefore, all that remains for him, 
or for the reader, will be to judge for himself 
whether it be sufficient to justify the pro- 
bation of mankind. And though it becomes 
me to introduce the thing in the most hum- 
ble way, it would be but a senseless treason 
to pretend that I do not think it a justifica- 
tion, fully sufficient. At the same time I 
suppose GOD has other reasons for the pro- 
bation of man, than will serve for a mere jus- 
tification 



Sect. IV.3 ON IMMORTALITY. Ul 

Strange as it may appear, if my Sceptic 
be a man of any the least character, I will 
draw the justification from the last place in 
the world where he would look for it ; name- 
ly, from HIMSELF. — To this, I know he 
will vouchsafe a smile of pity ; and say, 
I have chosen an adventurous difficulty. — 
He is right, and a good omen it is, in being 
an anticipation of my very argument ; for I 
am just going to point out to him that MEN 
CHOOSE DIFFICULTIES, and that, 
though steept in ease, they cannot live con- 
tent without them. In other words, I am 

going to appeal to a beautiful parallel, or 
agreement, which actually runs between 
GOD's design for man (present and future 
supposed), and that course which every pro- 
per man ELECTS FOR HIMSELF, here 
on earth. 

The history of every age and nation, and 
our own experience* equally show us, that 
if any man (the Sceptic included) be born to 



142 AN ESSAY CSect. IV, 

talent and virtue, and easy fortune to boot; 
whenever he begins to reflect on his powers, and 
upon all external relations, he scorns and 
forsakes an inglorious ease, — starts forth at 
the call of his country, or his species,— and 
either as a soldier, or in some other public 
course of utility, ivastes his life in a succession 
of hardships, toils, anxieties, vexations, dis- 
appointments and pai?is: All which he 
chooses, when he might have lolled on in 
soft luxury. — But, now the motive. — These 
evils are chosen because they form the road 
whereby a noble mind must get to its highest 
ambition, the respect and honor of other 

INTELLIGENT BEINGS around it. 

Let us mark the proof of this in the result 
of success. — Suppose a public assembly of 
men, of equal titles and fortunes ; and sup- 
pose all of them equally noble minded, and 
basking in the sun of honor for a life of 
virtues proved, except one who is obscured 
from public esteem, only because he has 



Sect. IV. 2 ON IMMORTALITY. 143 

had no opportunity to be proved. -All 

those who possess a noble mind, know 
how humbled and miserable this man must 
feel in the presence of the others ; and 
how he would secretly deplore that his life 
had not been a course of painful trials. 

Since, then, GOD has actually given to 
man that very course which we find every 
proper man elects, or sighs for if he cannot 
elect it ; must we not adore the gift and the 
giver, and deem it right, by our own rule. 

Now 1 suppose this undeniable general 
fact to be a truly philosophical criterion of 
the fitness of mans probation, — since it ap- 
pears, that without having been proved in 
the eyes of our compeers we cannot be happy 
even here, on earth ; and therefore, we could 
not be happy with all the other pleasures in 
Heaven, tvithout this balm of good re- 
port poured over them. What seems 

more characteristically to mark this cri- 
terion is, (as will be shewn,) that the want 



W AN ESSAY QSect. IV. 

of probation could not have been made up 
to us by any other gifts, or prevented by any 
conceivable power. 

This general desire of the human mind for 
trial, is so important in the present case, 
that I will, so far as my present plan admits, 
endeavour to illustrate its extent and opera- 
ration. 

First then I assert, It is a general law 
of the human mind (and therefore perhaps of 
all rational finite minds) to desire honor, re- 
spect esteem, or good report ,° all which are 
degrees of the same thing. — All men of every 
rank, sect, and country, agree in this desire ; 
and all are willing to sacrifice much ease or 
pleasure for it : though the quarter from 
which we wish it may differ infinitely, as well 
as the mode and extent of sacrifice we are 
willing to make in exchange. 

The man who has not courage to shed his 
Mood for honor or esteem, will shed his gold 
for it ; and he that has not soul to do either, 



Sect. IV.2 ON IMMORTALITY. m 

will yield applause to him that has thus 
proved himself.— A bad man, not counte- 
nanced by any other bad one, will act well, 
merely for the esteem of his neighbours. 

The american warrior, the asiatic enthu- 
siast, and the european patriot, will for 
honor choose to encounter miseries that 
twice surpass the average evils which God 
lays upon man. — Nor is this limited to what 
are commonly called heroic minds. Men 
of every profession feel an appropriate pride 
in being esteemed, by those around them, 
for having proved themselves worthy in the 
trials incident to their station. 

The very children of every country have 
an ardent desire to show some point of worth. 
to command the esteem either of superiors, 
or of equals ; and even the lowest dregs of 
human kind possess the very same principle, 
down to the wretch who will suffer in any 
excess to command the admiration of equal 
wretches. 

v 



146 AN ESSAY £Sect, IV, 

So universal is this law of the human mind, 
that it is as rare to meet a case of a person 
who can bear the contempt of all, as to 
find any other instance of a monster. And 
what is more, there is no evil so great which 
even the lowest of mankind will not face ra- 
ther than this. A common soldier, as 

such, is an honorable character : but among 
common soldiers there is many a man who 
has scarcely one point of good in his soul, 
who will nevertheless offer to face death 
where he need not, merely to prove himself &s 
stout a man as his comrades Dick and Harry, 
who are as worthless as he is, but whose dis- 

esteem he could not bear to suffer. 

In a word, this balm of merited esteem, is to 
man's happiness what the air is to his animal 
life : — He often does not heed that he breathes 
it, but his happiness would instantly die if it 
were totally withdrawn. 

Such is the extent and force of this law : 
and now to obviate objections.—It will be 



Sect. IV.] ON IMMORTALITY. 147 

said thai thousands live without seeking this 
balm of honor. — Do we not see men who 
are born to fortune, and are heirs of honor- 
able names, wallowing in luxury and care- 
less of good fame : and thousands of others, 
who are content to live at ease by any means ; 
some of them even execrated by all good 
men ? Yes, we do ; but this is no objec- 
tion. Each of these men have, and to be 

happy must have, some persons, whether good 
or bad, high or low, in whose opinion they 
think they have proved themselves well. 
The man who aspires not to the applause of 
a senate, the voice of an army, or the ac- 
clamations of a people, looks for it from 
some inferior source: and if he can find 
it no where without doors, he turns to his 
own home, or to whoever are his most in- 
timate associates. — All that the law demands 
is, that he must have esteem from those 
whom he has himself elected for his judges ; 

or, in the worst case, must have the hope 
v 2 



148 AN ESSAY £Sect. IV, 

that he shall receive it when his proved con- 
duct is known : But, be it observed, that the 
law of his mind obliges him to elect those 
whom he esteems. 

,Now here a grand consideration occurs 
to give infallible effect to the law in ques- 
tion. — The Sceptic must admit, that upon 
the very supposition of an hereafter, there 
will be no private society ; — no particular 
views, or habits; — no solace obscure from the 
public eye, there. Every thing that has been 
done, must be unerringly knoivn; and each 
man will have his just gradation of merit as- 
signed in the eyes of all. If the public eye 
approve him not, he has no one to turn to 
who can console him. Farther, Every man 
on earth chooses his oivn standard of merit ; 
some in good, and some in evil: But, by 
the supposition, there are none above but 
the virtuous ; and he must seek their applause. 

Now suppose any man admitted into such 
a society by interest instead of tried merit; 



Sect. 1Y.1 ON IMMORTALITY. 343 

How could his spirit bear to be addressed 
thus, — " You partake all our pleasures, and 
" mix with us ; but we cannot yield you our 
" esteem; for though you have lived a harm- 
" less life on earth, you never performed any 
" act of merit: You have, in fact, no character 

" that merits respect." How would any 

man bear to be told this in a company, here 
on earth, among persons many of whom he 
does not esteem, and all of whom he must 
soon leave ? — Then how much more intolera- 
ble must it be in a society which he cannot 
help honoring, and with which he is to spend 
an eternity ?— — — We know that even the 
lowest mechanic, or labourer, would not suf- 
fer such a charge among , his fellow labour- 
ers ; but would fight till his bones were bro- 
ken, rather than not repel it. 

It therefore here flashes upon us, as clearly 
as the sun's light, that if pleasure only with- 
out trial had been granted, we could not 
hereafter be content : and, that the course of 



UQ AN ESSAY [[Sect. IV. 

trial we voluntarily encounter, in the case of 
a noble mind, is often far beyond the 

average evils laid by GOD upon man. 

We are now to observe, that the gratifica- 
tion of having been proved, cannot be either 
inherited, or in any way received. It must be 
earned by the individual himself. — The 
Son of a line of fifty heroes, is never the more 
a hero until he has been actually under the 
trial. — He may be self-satisfied of his 
own heroism ; but history fully shows that 
princes of any spirit are never satisfied with 
this. In vain may pomp, pleasure, and even 
assigned heroism flowing from the mouth of 
flattery, all endeavour to stay his desire, or 
pour the balm of satisfaction into his soul : 
he will be tried, in the face of all. 

The law holds in every gradation, from 
" Macedonia's madman, or the Swede" down 
to the child with the garden rake. — It ger- 
minates with human life itself. Not Papa, 
but Tommy must do it ; and when Tommy 



Sect TV.} ON IMMORTALITY. 151 

becomes Tom, the adventure to be achieved 
must be attended with some difficulty, pri- 
vation, danger, or pain. He that dare not 
aspire to wield the sword, will at least prove 
his ambition with the whip, or attempt some 
other scheme to catch applause, down to a 
good song, a pun, or feats in the culinary art 
itself. 

In all cases of noble minds, whatever be 
the pursuit they engage in, it is remarkable 
how much they will sacrifice to excel, or at 
least to equal others, in the same race.— 
Pleasure, ease, fortune, health, nay life it- 
self, are often successively given up to this 
pride. Without turning to far famed in- 
stances wherein pride of emulation is near- 
er than gross self love, a fine one is fur- 
nished us in the death and character of Cap- 
tain Clerke, as related by Captain King in 

his account of Cook's Third Voyage. — 

This account first states Captain Gierke's 



152 AN ESSAY QSect. IV. 

death, worn out by a lingering decline ; and 
gives a short sketch of his services. It then 

concludes thus. " It would be doing his 

44 memory extreme injustice not to say, that 
" during the short time the expedition was 
44 under his direction, he was most zealous 
" and anxious for its success. His health, 
64 about the time the principal command de- 
volved upon him, began to decline very 
" rapidly, and was every way unequal to en- 
44 counter the rigours of a severe northern 
" climate. But the vigour and activity of 
44 his mind had in no shape suffered by the 
44 decay of his body ; and though he knew, 
" that by delaying his return to a warmer 
" climate, he was giving up the only chance 
44 that remained for his recovery ; yet, care- 
" ful and jealous, to the last degree, that a 
" regard to his own situation should never 
44 bias his judgment to the prejudice of the 
44 service, he persevered in the search of a 



Sect. IVJ ON IMMORTALITY. 1*3 

" passage, till it was the opinion of every 
" officer in both ships, that it was impracti- 
" cable." 

Now I have had opportunity to observe 
that Captain Clerke's noble disposition is by 
no means rare. I have the fullest persua- 
sion that he persevered longer than he would 
have judged requisite for any other man to 
do, had his opinion been asked as an inferior 
officer; and that he did so only because it 
was his trial in the sight of his companions 
and the world. 

It is indeed to be fairly admitted on the 
other side of the question, that many thou- 
sands are tried against their will ; and that 
thousands of those who suffer well would 
eagerly avoid it at the time. But we in- 
ductively know, that our just after pride is al- 
ways in proportion to the degree, or extent, 
of our trial : therefore every one will, here- 
after, have a proportionate cause to rejoice 

at having been tried. — —Suppose, on the 

x 



i5i AN ESSAY QSect. IV. 

contrary, that men were not furnished with 
this satisfaction when the time came? Would 
they not repine, and say ; Our Maker knew, 
though we knew not, what we should want 
to feel happy with the rest. — Why did he 

not give it to us?- On Earth, how 

many mixed minds, which have reached a 
contemptible old age, have blamed their pa- 
rents for not subjecting them to a proper 
course of proof, by which they might have 
deserved respect ? 

Those who shrink from trials are but the 
weak; and, also indeed, the deeply unfortu- 
nate, as some lamentably are, — As for the 
rest, I will show the general bent by a 
picture of life which is very analogous to 
our case considered in relation to our 
Maker. 

Suppose an over-fond Father to be the 
General of an army ; and that while every 
one burns to distinguish himself, this Father 
always orders his Son into the rear. — How 



Sect. IV. 2 ON IMMORTALITY. US 

would not the young man repine? — But 
now, as the service goes on, the Father calls 
his Son from time to time, and promotes him 
along with his brother officers who had ex- 
posed themselves. — How would his mind 
brook the eyes of his tried companions ? If 
he have any soul at all, he would suffer a 
load of shame, and almost hate society. 

Many a stripling is a pest to society, — 

fires at a feather, — puts his own life in wan- 
ton jeopardy, — shoots his bosom friend, who 
has seen twice his age and ten times his 
service: — all for what? — not because he 
hates him, or is any way injured but only 
because he had not been proved, and could not 
bear even so much as the suspence of public 
opinion until the course of service content 
him, in having proved himself. 

This being undeniably the general bent of 
man, should we not hereafter murmur had 
our MAKER denied us that happiness, 

which every wise father on earth would 
x 2 



156 AN ESSAY £Sect. IV. 

grant, and without which, it is proved, any 

STATE OF SOCIETY MUST BE THAT OF PAIN- 
FUL DESIRE UNSATISFIED. 

Upon this general principle, I say, every 
proper man, if he had an election, would 
choose to be a suffering man ; rather than 
be basely content as a brute, or even to being 
ingloriously happy as an unproved man admit- 
ted into approved society. 

Having, I trust, rendered it highly evident 
that PROBATION — deep and systematic 
probation — is absolutely necessary to the 
happiness of man in the presence of other in- 
telligent beings, it must appear not only jus- 
tifiable, but merciful or considerate in GOD 
to grant it to all, if all are to exist hereafter 

in each others view and society. Now 

the Sceptic cannot help allowing that if a 
law be good in general, it does not argue 
against the goodness of its maker though 
some unavoidable accidental evils arise from 
its operation.-— We observe, that the chief 



Sect. IV.] ON IMMORTALITY. i&t 

means which GOD has taken to prove man, 
are the gifts and operations of intellect 
and moral elections. — Those, we see, in 
their cross operations produce, to some indi- 
viduals, dreadful evils and far beyond the 
average of human misery ; But, while it 
has appeared that the happiness of the 
whole species demanded the general proba- 
tion, the particular accidental excesses can 
never be objected to, by the Sceptic, as ar- 
raigning the goodness of GOD. 

The infidel must now either show us, that 
the Senator can be happy in the Senate, 
—the soldier in the camp, — the mother 
surrounded by mothers, — and the me- 
chanic or labourer in the ale house, — each 
of them unproved in the eyes of their peers ; 
else he must admit that the DESIRE OF 
PROBATION IS A GRAND LAW of 
rational minds ; which desire, it does not 
appear that any gift y or any power^ could 
prevent. 



U8 AN ESSAY [TSect. IV. 

Another real and great consideration is 
always to he added to this last ; which is, 
the comparative short duration of our trial. 
— — The atheist is not here set against the 
supposition of an hereafter \ hut only, upon 
the supposition of an hereafter he demands 

WHY WAS MAN PLACED, OR PROVED, FIRST 

on earth? — Upon the supposition, then, of 
an hereafter, the Atheist must allow its vast 
duration : And what man would think much 
of one nighfs dismal dreams for a long life of 
happiness ; especially when it is proved that 
such dreams are necessary to make him re- 
lish the sweets that are to follow ? Se- 
venty years of misery, nay a woe of seventy 
hours, is truly a dreadful absolute evil; and 
it is no wonder that our present pains fill the 
imagination, and usually prevent all thought 
of their disproportion to the future : But, if 
the atheist would reduce it to proportion, it 
is matter of the simplest process to perceive, 
that the miseries of a whole human life are 



Sect. IV.] ON IMMORTALITY. LM 

to eternity not in the proportion of one mi- 
nutes pain to the life of man. Futurity 

absorbs all such proportions. 

If men could be made to keep in view 
that our earthly miseries are to hereaf- 
ter, but as one twitch of pain to a long 
and happy life, they would doubtless treat 
it as a trial which they shall hereafter con- 
sider as small, as any thing deserving the 

name of probation could have been. This 

is a position which begs nothing ; for we 
inductively know that we do come to view 
many of our past earthly trials in a similar 
light. 

Here I would entreat the reader's atten- 
tion to the circumstance, that the law of 
desire for probation operates both heed- 
ed, and to a great extent unheeded. I 
have already compared it to the air tve 
breathe; and now I would have it observed 
that in the natural world it frequently hap- 
pens that men are deprived of air and they 



160 AN ESSAY [[Sect. IV. 

thereupon die, which makes the value of re- 
spiration continually evident ; besides which 
we may be every hour put in mind of this 
effect: hut there is hardly such an instance to be 
found in the moral system as a wretch so 
low, as has not one person in the world whom 
he thinks has some opinion of his deserts. 
The man of intellect, or of honor, thinks he 
has it from his like ; — the man of taste, of 
business, or of play, from those of similar ha- 
bits; and so on with all. 

So like is this balm of bierited esteem to 
the vital air, that it is not in the use, but in 
the total privation, that we are called to notice 
its true value ; and there are few men alive so 
unfortunate as ever to have actually measured 
this. — In general, therefore, we can only 
imagine it. 

Observe that battered and mutilated mili- 
tary veteran, stumping into a circle of his 
own profession. He is gloomy and sad 
from hard service, a broken constitution. 



Sect. IV.] ON IMMORTALITY. 161 

and disappointment, and his whole exterior 
bears the marks of a life both severe and 

neglected. ■ He is not presently alive 

to any pleasure ; but is at this moment the 
prey of many stings and wants : Yet, I say 9 
all this while he hugs an inestimable jewel 
under his belt, which gem he would not 
exchange to be the most favoured minion of 
fortune, without merit. — >This jewel is the 
reflection that the whole army has seen his 
exemplary conduct and rate him at no mean 
standard.— He may not catch himself think- 
ing of the value of this treasure three times 
in three years ; and in a fretful moment 
might possibly curse it if he did ; but if it 
were possible for any one to attempt to rob 
him of it, we should then see how much he 
rates it at. 

On the other hand, see that exemplary 
mother surrounded by her children and by 
other women. — Her cast in life is not obtru- 
sive, and one might think it but little glori- 

Y 



162 'AN BSSAY £S«ct. TV. 

ous. She has had affliction enough to bear 
and rear her family ; and has perhaps often 
murmured at the hard trials of domestic 
life : But now, setting affection, totally out 
of the question, I would be glad to know 
for what she would resign the pride of 
having suffered so much and reared such 
an offspring. And here I do not mean 
that self-satisfaction which follows any- 
good conduct i for though this is a real and 
an important satisfaction, it is quite a differ-* 
ent feeling from the content of probation* 
— —The good mother, or any other good 
person, is self satisfied when alone, or before 
GOD : but the mother s great pride of proba* 
Hon is when other women, or all the world, 
are looking on. 

The same principle operates upon every 
man, woman, and child, in one way or ano- 
ther ; usually upon each in their vocation, or 
approved society of whatever kind. — Weak 
or silly minds only are excepted by this 



Sect. IV.] ON IMMORTALITY. 163 

law. It is no breach of the law that either 

a worthless wretch, or the most noble of minds, 
may be reduced to an almost total privation of 
esteem from others, and yet seem to bear it. — 
In the case of the former there may indeed he 
such a monstrous depravity of soul, as to 
care little for any such thing : — but in the 
other, or when a mind that is good and 
strong in any degrees is totally obscured, or 
totally wronged of its due, I confidently as- 
sert that either this mind must be buoyed up 
by a HOPE of being justified here, or here- 
after ; or else, it must be truly misera- 
ble. 

If this is so, as seems in the highest de- 
gree evident, it comes completely home to 
the severe demand of the Sceptic, to know 
why man was not placed at first in Heaven : 
and, (as I promised) the justification will 
;Come from the Sceptic himself if he be a man, 
of any dignity of mind. It matters not 

how unpleasant men may find the trial as 

Y 2 



164 AN ESSAY [[Sect. IV. 

they go along, (like short-sighted children 
under education, or medicine,) since it is 
inductively and universally shewn that 
men must be both proud and happy at it 
when they come to the evening of their des- 
tiny. 

Here some ungracious malcontent may 
perversely ask, Is it any thing new that men 
have emulation and love to show them- 
selves? — 1 answer no, certainly. — Have I 
not already said it operates heeded? which 
all the world knows : and indeed perhaps 
there is no moral general fact that is not 
known. But it may be, and I believe is 
new to sound the depth and extent to which 
this law operates unheeded; and to apply it 
as a justification of Providence. And if this 
lias been done before, by any one, I shall be 
at least happy in strengthening his views by 

an unbiassed suffrage. -Whatever the 

Sceptic who complains of evil may say, I 
ihink he would have started, at first, to have 



Sect. IV.] ON IMMORTALITY. 165 

heard in any company the following propo- 
sition Men could not be happy ivithout 

the evils of life. And yet I think this 

paradox is proved beyond the objection of 
any man who is in earnest ; and if my Scep- 
tic is not so, that is his affair. 

Here it yet remains to advert to some 
other reasons (subordinate ones I suppose) 
which have been assigned for man's proba- 
tion : such as, that he could not have pro- 
perly appreciated good without having tasted 
evil : and, that his trial yields him a comfort- 
able SELF-SATISFACTION.— -Both 
these reasons have a real existence, as facts ; 
and 1 by no means wish to lessen their 
weight ; but still I must think them minor 
considerations, and very inadequate of them- 
selves. 

And here, to set this in a clear point of 
view, it is highly necessary to distinguish 
between self-satisfaction and our sense 
of the approbation of others. This more 



1«« AN ESSAY [Sect. IV. 

particularly because I suspect, that our 
very general exertion to obtain the esteem 
of others has been, by the writers in ques- 
tion, often erroneously referred to a desire of 
self-satisfaction. — I shall view this mat- 
ter as I have done all the former, inductively ; 
and refer every man to his own feelings, to 
judge of it. 

Self-satisfaction is a solitary feeling: 
but the sense of the approbation of others 
is only social. — No man has any desire to 
show himself a hero, an orator, or an artist, 
in the midst of sheep, or among herds of 
cattle : But he might be self-satisfied that 
he is either of those, even among sheep or 
kine. — Nay, he might feel so though he had 
never been actually pr oved; and it is undeni- 
able that though men require proof of their 
fellows, they are very apt to take them- 
selves upon trust. As an instance of 

this, 1 myself sun as fully self satisfied how I 
would act in many cases in which I have 



Sect. IVO 0N IMMORTALITY. 1M 

never been proved, as I ever could be by 
actual proof : and I always think that GOD 
knows, and will judge me as much upon 
these principles, as upon any performed act ; 
with consideration for intensity, deliberation, 
and continuance, of unperformed conduct. — 
Thus I think the Sceptic may object, that 
such mighty evils as those of probation, are 
not necessary to our self-satisfaction. 

But what is more than all this, if we ana- 
lyse these feelings, we shall find that the de- 
sire of probation before others, actually pre- 
supposes self-satisfaction ; because no 
man, but a fool, ever offers himself for the 
combat unless he is beforehand self-satisfied 
that he can fight. 

Here now we clearly distinguish that it is 
not for self-satisfaction, but for the satis- 
faction of others among whom we must live 
and whose esteem we must gain, that emu- 
lation and virtue are so constantly exerted. 

Truly it is deeply irksome to a noble 



158 AN ESSAY [>ct. IV. 

mind to receive direct and obtrusive praise 
in the sight of equals; but does any one sup- 
pose from this, that the modest man is any 
the less sensible of having proved himself to 
others /—Does the rich man value his gold 
the less because he does not taunt his neigh- 
bour with the want of it ; or, even, though 
he may really dislike to have it the subject 
of present remark ? 

I may repeat, that if the approbation of 
others is so strong and general a desire 
here, in the sight of those whom, as earthly 
beings, we must soon leave ; and the greater 
part of whom we have but little respect for ; 
how strong must be this feeling in a so- 
ciety all of whom we must esteem, and 
remain in their sight to all eternity? 

Next, with regard to that other reason, 
that we could not appreciate good without 
having tasted evil. — This seems to apply to 
two very different objects ; — To our adora- 
tion of GOD ; and our own relish of enjoy- 



Sect. IV.] 0N IMMORTALITY. 16* 

ments. Now it may be, that trial is use- 
ful for the former of these purposes ; and it 
is certain that it gives a relish to the latter. 
But it does not appear, inductively, that men 
in general would volunteer a fit of the gout, 
for the sake of afterward contrasting it with 
sound health ; though the average of men 
will hug any opportunity to risk even limb, 
or life itself for general applause. 

In fine, Probation is at once the opprobrium 
and the talisman, the sorrow and delight, of 
human life. It is the morning joy, the noon- 
day pride, and the evening solace of man's 
earthly race : it gladdens the eye of the 
child ; raises the sparkling crest of the ma- 
ture man ; and gilds all the recollections of 
the declining veteran with a serene lustre, to 
have proved himself in the eyes of his spe- 
cies, When the trial draws to a close, 

— when the mixt of human feelings and ac- 
tions has stood the fire ; the war of heated 

elements, — the crackling and ebullition, have 

z 



176 AN ESSAY CSect IV. 

ceased; — and the remainder is to be examin- 
ed ; probation is the pure gold at the bot- 
tom of the crucible, and all else of the he- 
terogeneous mass has clearly manifested itself 
lo be froth, fume, and vapour ;— vanity, and 
vexation of spirit. 

I therefore find no inductive justification 
of Providence so general, so strong, and so 
indispensably necessary to our content, as 
the gratification of our desire to prove our- 
selves in the sight of other intelligent 
beings around us; — nothing which shows 
THE DISPENSATIONS OF GOD so 
agreeable to THE ELECTIONS OF 
MEN.' 



Sect. IV/] ON IMMORTALITY. 171 

My plan does not admit of enlarging to 
consider all the various relations of the ge- 
neral fact which has been offered here, as 
moral ground of hope. I shall therefore 
only subjoin a few general remarks or con- 
clusions. 

First. — The only point required to render 
the argument from brutes a complete moral 
indication of a future life, is, that we believe 
the existence of A MORAL GOVERNOR. 

Secondly. — If it was a vast absurdity in 
the Ancient Greek Atheists, to suppose this 
great Universe the work of any cause less 
than intelligence ; thai absurdity has become 
ten fold vast from the subsequent augmentation 
of Natural Light. And therefore, an atheist 
must on this ground be a growing wonder; 
even if we chose to suppose Matter made to 
his hand, and let him get over the absurdity 
of thinking that motion began without an 
intelligent cause. 

Thirdly.— The ineffable Wisdom display ed, 

z 2 



H« AN ESSAY [[Sect. IV. 

even within our limited view, is of such a 
nature and extent as cannot possibly be sup- 
posed combined with wickedness in the de- 
signer ; because wickedness, so far as we 
know it, is ever the result of wants, of short 
sighted views, and an intention of the designer 
to better himself ivithin those views : neither 
of which can be supposed of any Being 
powerful and wise enough to form this Uni- 
verse. 

Fourthly. — The two last considerations 
are amply sufficient to claim the reliance of 
all but depraved minds, and to assure us, 
that the evils of human life are permitted for 
some great and good end ; even though we 
could not have assigned any reason for it 
which might appear sufficient. 

Fifthly. — Besides the foregoing indication 
of goodness in the GOVERNOR, the whole 
of my present general view of Animated Na- 
ture is a faint glance at a measureless amount 
of happiness which GOD has bestowed 



Sect. IV.3 ON IMMORTALITY. 17S 

upon innumerable series of sensitive beings 
on this Earth : In other words it is, so far as 
it goes, though that is deplorably short of 
the real magnitude of the object, an inductive 
evidence of the general goodness of Cre- 
ation, above the evil.- Attention to the 

phenomena of Nature, (which is the Sceptics 
own rule,) cannot fail to convince him that 
brutes have vastly more happiness than misery, 
But when he has ascertained this fact, he 
must, in order to deal in the least fairly with 
Providence, stretch his conception to the 
utmost, and then he will fall far short, to es- 
timate the innumerable miriads of animal 
beings ivhich daily awake to joy. If, how- 
ever, he do this to his utmost, he will be forced 
to confess that the number of human beings 
is so comparatively small, that though their 
miseries were even altogether unaccountable it 
never could discountenance the general good- 
ness O/OUR MAKER. 

The happiness of brutes seems indeed to 



m AN ESSAY Oct. IV. 

be graduated, though by what rule we 
know not : and there may be wise reasons 
for this, as referring to their past, and per- 
haps to their future lives; But supposing 
brutes made for this life only, there is one 
thing which an enlightened Sceptic who has 
any sense of equity must admit, namely, that 
infinite goodness would not make rationality 
the exclusive object of its mercy ; but that 
wherever it creates the capability of 
FEELING, it is universally the plea for 
happiness : or, in other words, GOD surely 
made happiness the end of creating all those 
beings whom he has made capable of feel- 
ing the want of it. It therefore fol- 
lows that the happiness of brutes is as high 
an evidence of GOD's goodness, as is the 
happiness of men. 

In concluding this remark I must repeat, 
on account of the inestimable value of the 
evidence from brute happiness, that this 
mighty Engine lias been quite lost by those 



Sect. IV.3 ON IMMORTALITY. I?0 

writers who have treated man as the happier 
being of the two. And since the miseries of 
human life form the great ground of Atheism ; 
(while, as a fact, it is not denied by any party;*) 
it is the more deplorable omission not to have 
brought forth the prodigious amount of brute 
happiness, to overwhelm this atheistical ob- 
jection. 

Sixthly. — Besides all these evidences, I 
have advanced an inductive reason for the 
probation of man ; which, though I by no 
means suppose it the only end of Human 
Evils, is A FACT so strong, so broad and 
universal, as to render any atheistical cavil 
at evil at least puny and contemptible, if 
indeed it does not forbid such attempts. 

Finally.— Though I would hold it con- 
temptible on our side, to combat Scepticism 
with declamation instead of argument, 1 
think (from this summary, without enlarge- 
ment,) it becomes but a tame figure to say, 
that atheism lies fettered in triple bonds 



176 



AN ESSAY, &c. 



tSects IV, 



of absurdity : and if so, and the fact of 
brute happiness be any thing like as I have 
viewed it, our Moral Hope seems unassail- 
able. 



END OF THE FIRST PART. 



AN 



ESSAY 

ON 

IMM ORTALITY. 

PART SECOND. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 

The First Part of this Essay has been 
chiefly devoted to the evidence of others as 
to the comparative fact of human and of 
brute happiness, and in following the con- 
sequences which seem indicated. The 

Part which is now to follow, is but a de* 
tailed view of the same as it has appeared 
in my own experience ; from which source 
it chiefly is, that I draw my conclusions. 

A A 



178 INTRODUCTION. 

With regard to this amplification, one 
great object is to unveil the vast mass of 
brute happiness which actually exists on 
this Earth, or, to awaken attention to its 
real magnitude, which I take to be vastly 
beyond what I may denominate its visible 
magnitude in the eyes of all those writers 
who have considered man as the happier of 

the two Orders, Against the views of 

those writers I am obliged to object, not 
only their denying the variety and extent of 
individual brute happiness, and their shortly 
slurring over such advantages of brutes as 
they have been obliged to confess ; but also, 
their consequent omission, or rather ina- 
bility, to make a grand appeal to the INFI- 
NITY OF NUMBERS in the brute order, 
which makes the whole sum of good so 
high a general evidence of goodness in the 
CREATOR. 

What I wish to show in regard of this is, 
that men in general, in their views of brute 



INTRODUCTION. 179 

happiness, form a telescope of their imagina- 
tion ; while human vanity always inverts it 

when directed to that object— Nothing is 

easier than to err; and it is for others to de- 
cide whether my views have avoided the op- 
posite tendency. This is the very matter I 
would have properly investigated by more 
competent judges: and all that I conclude 
with confidence is, that if the whole sum of 
animal good in the lower order be esti- 
mated at only one halfwh&t I conceive it to 
be ; it, of itself alone, presents annihilation to 
atheistical objection: besides the grand object 
of its furnishing us a more broad and philo- 
sophical moral argument for our own future 
existence. 

So long as the defenders of Providence 

limit their views to the Human Species, they 

must stand the loud complaints of theAtheist 

against the prevelancy of evil in this species ; 

which they cannot deny as a fact, nor have 

they ever been able to find any unanswerable 
a A 2 



180 INTRODUCTION, 

justification of it. But if the infinite num- 
bers of other animals be taken into the ac- 
count, and they be proved generally happy, 
the miseries of the human species become 
but an enigmatical exception to a general 
rule of animal happiness ; and the coldest 
calculator may well trust to its happy so- 
lution. 

To render this undeniable by the atheist, 
we have only to agree upon what must be 
the mark of perfect goodness in a creation 
of animal beings. — And here I think the 
thought that must start into every mature 
and reflecting mind as the main rule of 
granting happiness is, to bestow it upon 
every being (transgressors excepted) who is 
created subject to feel miserable in the tvant 
of it. — This indeed seems the broadest mo- 
ral rule : but it also seems to be the narrow- 
est that strict justice can sanction.-- — An 
Atheist who cries out at the evils of human 
life, or who would be satisfied were but man 



INTRODUCTION, 181 

made happy, and is totally dead to the good 3 
or evil, that befals innumerable millions of 
feeling heings of other shape than human ; 
such an Atheist has, in rny opinion, no con* 
ception of divine goodness, nor any right to 
ask questions. And here, that I may keep 
at due distance the meanness of cloaking 
foul practice under a fair theory, be it con- 
fessed, that few men have transgressed deeper 
in scattering annoyance among unoffending 
brutes than I have : And, what is more, I do 
not " take to my soul the healing unction* of 
a belief, (which I suppose is entertained by 
many conscientious sportsmen) that it was fit, 
to restrain the destructive increase of ani- 
mals ; nor even had I, in general, the ex- 
cuse of a desire to partake of what was 
killed.— Those happy and unoffending ani- 
mals presented a temptation to sport, which, 
in the situation I was then placed, appeared 
scarce less than noble. At least it was en- 
terprising, invigorating, and, in truth, at that 



18B INTRODUCTION, 
unreflecting age, delightful. — I have indeed 
since reflected with deep regret, that one of 
the greatest pleasures of my happiest years 
was in a habit, which I am now sensible put 
me upon a level with the most destructive 
animal of prey : But self-love has not blind- 
ed me to the conviction that it is unjustifia- 
ble. — It is to discharge a feeling of my own 
that I make the Sceptic a present of this 
fact, and I am not anxious to offer to him 
any matter of excuse : But he will discern 
that the confession is by no means imperti- 
nent to the main subject of our inquiry, since 
it shows I am in possession of the experi- 
ment (which is the best single evidence any 
man can have) of the great pleasure of a life 
which approached, as far as might be, to an 
instinctive one. -He who thinks it is im- 
possible to enjoy such a life, and yet cherish 
nobler feelings ; must have reflected very 
little on the inconsistency of man, and 
pevhaps scarce attended much to his history. 



INTRODUCTION. 183 

The fact itself does but prove, what is 
too well proved in innumerable other ways, 
that an individual's happiness often wars with 
true moral rectitude. But it cannot prevent 
our discerning, that it is a certain mark of 
divine goodness, to bestow good (except in 
cases of offence) upon every thing which is 
made capable of feeling the want of it ; which 
principle being acknowledged, renders the 
whole sum of brute happiness a mighty ma- 
nifestation of GOD's moral attribute, 



1 have now to apologise to the reader, for 
what he might otherwise consider but a silly 
impertinence ; a change of style, which will 
be found throughout this Second Part.- — — 
The plain truth is, it rarely happens that 
those who are properly trained for such spe- 



184 INTRODUCTION/ 

dilations as the present, have gone about the 
world and gathered their own materials; 
while, those who have been thrown upon 
such experience, very seldom have any after 
bent for using it in this way. — What is yet 
more unlucky, if in the latter case a man 
happen to have such a bent, any advantages 
he may have gained of facts, he probably 
loses in the want of cultivated talents, to ap- 
ply them to philosophy, or to fit them for the 
public eye in an age grown fastidious in li- 
terary taste. — Though labouring under 

such causes, I have nevertheless found, that 
when happiness and misery were the sub- 
jects to be depicted, a cold narrative style 
could by no means do them justice; and no- 
thing appeared left, but to let Nature tell her 
story, in her own wild irregular way. 

The statement of facts, the reasonings, and 
conclusions, are here the only fair objects of 
criticism ; and I cannot suppose that any 
one who is interested in the main subject, will 



INTRODUCTION. 185 

descend to waste attention upon transgres- 
sions of any other kind, in a case where no 
pretension is set up. 

It is a fortunate compensation of Nature 
that we often prefer our own deformities to 
the beauties of other persons. The reader 
is welcome to suppose this one reason why 
1 have not called in the aid of cultivated ta- 
lent to dress my facts and sentiments in 
some better mode : But my amusement is 
the searching of plain matters of fact, and I 
cannot stoop to appear in borrowed plumage* 

The Second Part was written before 

the First. It claims all the liberty of Na- 
ture ; and I have not ambition enough of 
this sort, to attempt to civilise or reclaim it. 



BB 



AN ESSAY 



jlSect. I. 



PART SECOND, 



SECTION FIRST. 

THE ILLUSTRATIVE MORAL ARGUMENT ; CON- 
TAINING A COMPARISON OF THE TWO OR- 
DERS OF MINDS. 

PRAISE to Almighty God, by whose 
good providence all things exist, we human 
things, by HIM endow'd with intellect to 
read his great design, may surely trust. — 
Else why would GOD inform the son of 
man, above the beast which neither hopes, 
nor fears, nor hnotvs of any thing beyond its 
feed? 

In all creation's range, no character seems 



Sect ir\ ON IMMORTALITY. i3r 

larger writ than this, that Providence hath 
nothing made without an end in due propor- 
tion fit. — The bodies of men and beasts are 
brothers by one common law ; but vastly 
different are their minds. The brute lacks 4 
understanding, — useless gift for beings 
not destin'd to future praise, or blame : But 
man hath INTELLECT and WILL to 
choose 'twixt right and wrong, — and choose 
he must ; — then, being forc'd to soiv with 
good, or evil deeds, shall he not fitly live to 
reap the field ? 

Utility admir'd appears in the least seem- 
ing of great Nature's works : and shall the 
mind of man — the wonderful prolific womb 
of human thoughts, impress'd with hopes 
and fears — the thing which thirsts for, and 
revives on knowledge — rare contrivance far 
above the rest, — shall this be thought the 
sole opprobrium of the great design — a thing 
without jit use ? O wit of fools, and thought 
which ne'er can live till reason die. Sure 

B B 2 



188 AN ESSAY £Sect. t 

none can doubt that understanding bears 
the tacit promise of a future life. — In all the 
Universe, great means announce great end ; 
and by this law the mind of man is made to 
live, 

Though he is gross in part— -to sensual 
passions for a season fetter'd— man bears 
deepest stamp of future destiny l The pre- 
sent sordid working of his soul is, sure, its 
lesser occupation. Forethought wings 

his prescient view through a long train of 
sublunary consequences, reaching far;— em- 
ployment high, which claims affinity with 

higher minds: -But, in advance of 

these immeasurably far, (unless he's sorely 
Biock'd,) he hears at every turn the hea* 
venly distant voice of IMMORTALITY? 
—it sounds unbidden in his ear; its bode 

sublime he cannot will, — nor stop. ~ 

Who gives this voice a tongue, but GOD : 
-^-and why would perfect goodness thus 
torment with alternating agony of hopes 



Sect. I.]] ON IMMORTALITY. M 

and fears, like ague heat and cold, the short 
liv'd insect of an hour, who presently must 
rest in death, with, all his useless sufFer'd 

mockery of things to come ? —Were this 

our utmost limit* would Almighty GOD, so 
manifest in merciful decrees, have grievously 
entwin'd the very texture of man's soul, 
with a vast world of various self-made mise- 
ries ; and guil'd him, ever, with the figuring 
phantoms of sublime and heavenly thoughts/ 
and exquisite perceptions; — all, from first 
to last, made absolutely useless by a present 
death ? 

This reasonable question rises, here, from 
a mere general view of good in GOD's de- 
sign, ivithout comparison of things: and 
from this actual fashion of our minds, we 
chance might hope of future life, were there 
indeed no other sign vouchsaf'd. But when 
we turn to contemplate each individual hu- 
man creature's lot, wise men collect a farther, 
and a stronger hope from the unequal hap- 



190 AN ESSAY" £Sect. 1 

piness of man to man :— the good one suffer- 
ing for his good ; the bad, for bad made 

happy. Doubtless this seems wrong for 

perfect work, in case there be no retribution- 
day; since JUST OMNIPOTENCE could, 
surely, make the lot of all men equal as their 
worth. 

Yet here the melancholy Sceptic, loath to 
trust, will say, that Nature rules by general 
laws; and to maintain the justice here de- 
sird, would need continually break through 
her rules by miracles for every separate 
man. — Such prodigies, if not beyond AL- 
MIGHTY POWER, at least exceed the 
general scheme ; and, since man shares the 
common gift of life below, 'tis vain to hope 
he shall outlive the brutes, his earth-made 
peers. 

This deep despondency seems morbid 
Sceptic fear, improbably arraigning the vast 
mercy of CREATIONS LORD. But, 
happily we have a stronger anchor, far, to 



Sect. 1.1 ON IMMORTALITY. 191 

hold our hope, than lives in the comparison 
of man with man : For certain doth appear 
a deeper strange enigma still, in inequality 
of happiness of MAN to BEASTS, and 
this of REASON'S GROWTH. 

THREE GROUNDS of trust now 
here are manifest, from view of GOD'S BE- 
NEVOLENCE ; apart from evidence of 
promise high reveal'd and all the grow- 
ing lights of physical research. TWO, 

of the three, are obvious to all : The THIRD 
BE HERE OUR THEME. We take it 
for our strongest moral ground : 'tis 
living truth, and speaks to man a promise 
worth his care. 

Look round the many peopFd Earth, full 
teaming as it does with countless tribes of 
animated things ; and all ? save reasoning 
man, serenely void of forecast cares and 
heartsick thoughts of retrospect. Yet 
what lack these of senses to enjoy the vari- 



192 AN ESSAY QSect L 

ous goods of Nature in a sublunary state. — 
Colours, and sounds, and tastes of various 
sense, glad them as sweetly piquant as they 
do the most luxurious man. — They sport, 
they love, they build, they hunt ; 'tis seldom 
that they war in their own tribe, but live 
content, in calm retreat, or social inter- 
course : not tantaliz'd by cares for worldly 
weal, nor steep'd in worldly woes, nor deep 
tormented by forebode of what may be, or 

not be, felt hereafter. Surely such a 

state well suits the tenants of an earthly life. 

Of all the brutish tribes, observe how they 
are fitly cloth'd and fed by Heaven's sus- 
taining hand ; and such as fancy curious 
iodgment, richly gifted with rare craft of 
wondrous architect. Nor are thev left to 
seek purveying arts, or policy of provident 

arrangement for the season's want. How 

many a science deep directs their work ; no 
jot their own design, but all the partial gift 
of bounteous Heaven ? 



Sect 10 ON IMMORTALITY. 19S 

Some enviable kinds make up the round 
of life in tranquil browsing on luxuriant 
fare : restraint from feasting never but by 
soft attacks, and welcome arms, of fascinating 
sleep. — —Fearless they feed, and roam, and 
rest; and have no thought they could be hap' 
pier made. Witness the elephant serene ; — ? 
the towering elk; — the arm'd rhinoceros, 
who not an equal knows ;— the placid feai> 
less buffalo ; — the gross luxurious glutton 
wild swine ; and an endless train of equal 
happy tribes. 

Other kinds, which ape the desultory 
life of man, live by their favorite sport, in all 
the wild irregular delights so highly priz'd 
by hunters in a human shape.— Health, pas- 
time, enterprise, and appetite, by ultimate 
possession crown'd, make up the pleasures 
of a hunter's life ; — as well the leopard's, as 
the Persian lord's, — And here the best that 
we can say, is mere equality of happiness 

between the highest sensual man and vilest 

c c 



194 AN ESSAY Oct. I. 

beast, each in his favorite hour: but this 
crude judgment may not stand the sanction 
of a full comparison. The beast enjoys his 
day quite unalloy'd. The chieftain's mind, 
much reason-sick, in vain would bar the in- 
road cares of human life; the neighbour- 
ing hostile power, — the home intrigue ; — the 
treacherous bowl, or steel of dark conspi- 
racy ; — the demagogue, and turbulent un- 
certain thunder of the mob, or that, or this 
way rolling; — all conspire to overcloud 
his fairest day. — A thousand poisoning pub- 
lic and private cares, too long to tell, are 
yet untold ; and, sure, here's no equality of 
happiness between the lord of men and lord 
of beasts. 

The numerous kinds which graze the plain 
claim little of particular descant. Their 
state displays but small variety of good.— 
They feed and sleep, and wake to daily 
sameness with the past ; and, in our eye, 
flat dullness seems to mark their mute con- 



Sect, r] ON IMMORTALITY. JrU 

tent : But 'tis content ; and tvkile 'tis s& 

no change is ever bliss. Besides, to those 

dull joys what joys do men prefer? What 
season of the day sheds thicker balm of rich 
delight on man, than evening hours serene ; 
when full of cheer his soul o'erflowing teams 
with charity to all? — When doth the wary 
man petition man, but when he's full, and 
e'en the vilest soul is raised to generous 
mood ? If aught of good inhabit his gross 
heart ; that hour, by warmth of its own joy 

expanded large, it emanates. —Then let 

us not think small this bliss, so vast, itself a 
source of bliss. 

If now we turn from brutes which roam 
on land, and view the various lives of wan- 
ton water tribes, bow happy for the most 

part do they live. Tis true that fish are 

prey to fish : but is not man to man. 3 Tis 
also true they oft-times hunger feel, in com- 
mon with our kind. For all the rest, a hap- 
py life is theirs. — In downy lOuid soft they 
c c 2 



196 AN ESSAY ISect I. 

float; with ease they travel, glide, or wan- 
ton, as they will : For ever change, and find 
new bliss in sweet variety. ■ Daily warm'd 
to joy by Nature's fire, charnVd by its glo- 
rious light ; made doubly happy by the two 
commix'd ; they crowd the surface vast, al- 
ternate bask and play, in change continual* 

i .Great length of life is theirs, both large 

and small : ever active, ever young ; disease 
'they know not, or but rarely know. — From 
harsh, or fatal contacts safe ; no fraetur'd 
limbs, no lacerated flesh, nor accident in 
aught, to agonise or stay them, ever seems 
their lot — ^Climate and country, at their will, 
they change without impediment i their food 
is ready dress'd and ever in their way. In 
all things else (one only care apart) gay 
sport seems all their care.— *~^Ye nncheck'd 
human kind who early drink of liberty's 
sweet fount ; who cheer yourselves alike by 
Nature's fire ; who hunt and bask and wan- 
ton as ye will, and of the cankering morrow 



Sect. 1] ON IMMORTALITY. W 

never think, (bow rude ye be, I care not) an- 
swer me ; are not those simple sports of 
fishes life true bliss? 

For all these goods, one ill alone is tax'd 
upon the watery race ; — mere momentary 
dread of stronger foe in view ; who, when he 
comes, but urges them to wholesome action 
of escape. — Perchance they're sometime 
caught : What then ? The ill is momentary, 
and no malady they suffer a whole lingering 
lifetime long ; in corporal and mental torture 
left to languish, melancholy, hopeless, bed- 
ridden, or poor, as human beings, million^ 
daily are t nor are the rich exempt. 

Pain, when it comes, no gentle nerves re- 
spects ; and in prospective view the rich feel 
most. — —Observe the affluent, gay, volup- 
tuous things which flutter in the sun-shine 
of a sensual round, arrested in their course 
by certain signs of shorten'd doom.- — From 
that dread hour how chang'd imagination's 
tone ; how spoilt their gust of every thing 



198 AN ESSAY [Sect. V 

that us'd to gender sweets. Gay plea- 
sures now curtail'd — denied — cut off: — 
Each cheerful thought to gloomy boding 
turn'd, or poisoning mix'd the two, by fore- 
cast of an ill not yet to come, perhaps, for 
many a day ; though come it must. — —Thus 
fortune's minions often linger on ? a living 
death ; and all to reason owe the poison of 

their days. —Nor is this woe to certainty 

confined. — The world doth team with mil- 
lions of our race, who live in daily fluctua- 
ting fears of ills which never come ; ?iot 
less, for this, the torment of their lives. 

Besides the cares on which our foresight 
justly broods, of body, fortune, friends, and 
fame, how many causeless fears rise up in 
reason's eye; phantoms in fact, but in tor- 
menting real, sure enough. -In fairest 

peaceful cities, (every soul in triple safety 
lock'd) how many thousand female bosoms, 
through the tedious night, beat strong and 
oft' the larum of a tortur'd soul : Howmany 



Sect. I/] ON IMMORTALITY. 199 

thousand hearts, scar'd from balmy rest, 
partake the vigil of the trembling lamp; 
and, forced to emulation, quake at every 

whispering fissure's breath. Such the 

nightly bliss of human kind, secur'd by mo- 
ral and by civil laws, by bolts and bars ; by 
all the pomp of guardian watch and ward ! i 

What brute would change its ignorance for 
this, — to live on daily draughts of dire an- 
ticipated woe ? — To be as fish, eompar'd, 
seems paradise. 

How easy 'tis to cleave the yielding brine : 
to neither dig nor toil, nor prison'd be in 
hungry, cold, and dreary climes ;' nor weary 
travel on with chaf d and wounded limbs, 
and want of sustenance, as emigrating man 
is fain to do when he would change. — 
But, above all, how blest the watery race, 
exempt from reason's cares of every sort 

Hath no man* mark'd the sea-press'd 

merchant, poring through the gloom of fu- 
ture with his carefraught beam less eye?-*— 



100 AN ESSAY Oct. I. 

jpent up, in noisome frail and leaky vessel 
prison'd close ; his fate bawl'd loud by ruth- 
less elements, his melting hopes wash'd less 
by every wave: his dismal deep funereal 
knell beat heavy by the murmuring billows 
on the body of his once stout bark, made 
now the groaning coffin of a gallant crew. 
None but Heaven can save him : nothing 
in his sight but the capacious boundless 
arms of Proteus Danger, now array'd in 
foaming Ocean's form ; embracing close, and 
to his horrid bosom pressing, the affrighted 
ship. — Reduc'd to toil his few remaining 
hours ; and Oh, far harder still, with tugging 
heart-strings racking his stout manhood at 
the thought of unprotected, unprovided 
home : a lov'd and faithful mate, and darling 
callow brood, all left to hold out mournful 

piteous hands. How oft at such an hour 

hath this poor human sport of elements be- 
held the playful porpoise rise, in myriad 
legions, far as eye could reach ; making ju* 



Sect, I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 201 

bilee o'er all the troubled sea. And when 
these wantons rnark'd the way-worn stagger- 
ing bark, more playfully they near'd, and 
shot, bright meteor-like, felicitous, full often 
to and fro, abrupt across the course of her 
mad flight, (at now its utmost speed) as 
though she grounded lay. — With these the 
burnished green refulgent gay dorado's 
mix'd, in golden spangles set ; the mottled 
silver tunnies, and variety of other surface 
tribes in seeming neutral sports: — all beau- 
tiful in forms; — in various colours vastly 
beautiful ; — gestures exquisite: — in swiftness, 

each one marvellously wing'd. — Whole 

hours they wanton'd on; nor seem'd their 
bliss to cloy. In saucy daring to the sur- 
face, close, they slanted oft: here carelessly 
upturned their fine proportion'd silver sides, 
and golden water-wings, to show how gau- 
dily they were attir d. Then turning tail, 
in independence proud, (to others giving 
place) were 06T again ; as if in sportive mock 

D D 



202 AN ESSAY Oct. I. 

at awkward man's distress, in his ingenious 
and advent'rous scheme to lord it o'er their 

element. Rare happy thoughtless things, 

how oft the boding, pain'd, fatigu'd, and 
prison'd mariner, in envious comparison, 
hath thought ye blest. 

But countless are the kinds of water tribes ; 
and various are the modes in which they're 

happy made. —Full far from homeward 

seas, and near where antipodean wonders 
feast the sight, as on a day serene the surly 
ocean slumbering lay, and weary sea-beat 
galley floated fast asleep; the time hath 
been, the idle sea boy, in that calm and quiet 
hour made truant of his cares, hath by the 
searching ray of zenith sun down peer'd into 
the bosom of the treasur'd deep, where won- 
dering he saw the secrets of a magic nether 
world, of exquisite contrivance for appointed 
minds. 

Forth from the bottom high majestic rose 
phantastic forms, of coral palaces and spread- 



Sect.- 1. J ON IMMORTALITY. 903 

ing groves, begirt with lawns and woody 
tufts, all wond'rous submarine; — mysterious 
alleys, — grots, — and numerous nameless 
shapes of objects all around. — And through 
these scenes did wanton countless groups of 
various happy things, whose names (save 
they were Jish) he knew not aught ; but this 
much saw, that by their tasteful zorid and 
spotted coats, of many a drug's and many a 
metal's hue, they seem'd high dress'd to re- 
vel in the decorated fairy haunts which then 
sedue'd his eye. 

As thus he gaz'd, coy Nature (mistress of 
the revels here ) for pastime changed the scene : 
For, by some- varying light contriv'd, what 
first seem'd bright paviilions, gardens gay, 
and groves luxuriant; turn'd, in reverse, to 
dungeons drear, and caverns dark, and dis- 
mal scenes anomalous : while shapes of liv- 
ing forms confus'd, with hideous horrid 
heads, and waving outstretch'd giant arms, 

to fright imagination from her human seat, 
dd2 



M AN ESSAY [Sect, t. 

made up the picture of a dreadful dream.—- 
But this was only playful Nature's mock, — a 
drama made of various pastimes for the fa- 
vor'd tenants of the place : For undisturb'd 
they rang'd, and soon new rays of sunshine 
bright made all as first ; while ever, intri- 
cately gliding, sported on the happy tribes- 
blest natives of these realms. 

Blunt are the seaman's powers to sketch 
out various Natures finer traits ; his feelings 
rudely sear'd, — the inlets of his exquisite 
perception frozen up by chilling press of 
care and stormy toil j Else might we learn 
of many a fairy land, no fairy land beneath 
the briny main, 

Thou ship-boy Falconer, kind feeling 
brother of the nautic band, whose native 
simple tale of sailors 5 woe hath oft times 
wrung unwonted sighs from hearts of steel \ 
whose soul was double temper'd, — form'd 
for enterprise of seaman hard, and rarely 
strung to feel and to express,— had not 



Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 205 

rough Neptune snatch'd thee to himself had 
thy ill fated ship liv'd round the point of 
Hope, and far through many an intricacy of 
the Orient Isles thy muse's eye had revel'd 
in the varying charms of Nature's naked 
wiles, as our dull eyes have done; then 
might such scenes as now are told, in finer 
features trac'd, in other language sweetly 
cloth'd, have brought persuasion, (a rich 
cargo) to thy country home. But in its stead, 
rude speech of dry and humble narrative 
must, as it may, drag through. 

Wherever live the watery race, from min- 
nows to the whale, they live in sport. 

All flesh must die, nor can these favor'd be- 
ings be exempt ; But, small's the ill to them. 
Their trouble scarce begun, is o'er ; — they 
neither sorrow long before, nor leave a wretch 

behind to sorrow after them. What are 

the ills of such a life and death, to human 
woes ; — to such as leave, and such as weep 
for, all their souls hold dear. To choking 



205 AN ESSAY TSect I. 

agony of widow'd mothers, hanging over sons 
whose memory alone must longer live : To 
families from sweetest union torn ; the sire 
and dam by death, or distance doom'd (oh 
worse than death) no more to meet; the ten- 
der offspring scatter d o'er the world, to 

want, contempt, and woe. What is an 

instant death, at close of happy life, to fore- 
sight that ourselves, or those we love, must 
onward miserable be, — to agonising retros- 
pect of what we have, — or what we might 
have been? 

Yon family, for virtue, grace, and union 
fam'd ; whom not the venom fang of calumny 
had dar'd to bite; was by the cast of adverse 
ventures, — faithless friends, — reduc'd to 
omen of prospective indigence. — To save his 
fortune's wreck, and raise a drooping home, 
the father sought a distant clime, and so- 
joura'd in the sun beat realms of Ind. — 
His virtuous labours fortune fails to crown. 
But health and hope yet live ; and brighter 



Sect. I/] ON IMMORTALITY. 207 

schemes in native clime invite. He eager 
hastens home, where far more rich than 

golden treasures claim his care. The ship 

has made the western bourne ; the wind sits 
right for shore : the husband and the father 
glows with almost mad'ning hope's tumultu- 
ous fever heat. — Meantime (O long wish'd 
happy hour) the welcome missive flies, and 
greets the trembling hand of virtuous wi- 
dow'd love. — Now sweetly soft convuls'd 
with struggling joy, yet not unmix'd with 
keen impatience for the bliss of meeting ex- 
quisite, the amiable mother waits encircl'd 
by her darling daughter group of budding 
sweets, and proudly burns to place them in 
a much lov'd husband's dear approving sight. 
Her soul sits watching in her ear, — her eye, 
— to catch the first alarm of actual bliss : 
Her lovely red and white, scarce seeming 
past meridian bloom, now faintly struggles 
useless, hostile banner'd under causeless 
hope and fear, so near at hand comes peace- 



208 AN ESSAY £Sect. L 

ful certainty. —But now the joyous day 

runs down his rapid course ; the night falls 
lowering rough : and hark (O fate) a Royal 
ship, for safety met, strikes full our lesser 
ship. — One horrid yell ; and down. — Alas 
what change in one sad moment wrought. 
A dearest husband, father, fortune, hope ; 

all all for ever gone. O retrospect. 

mark now thy cruel work. — What chemic 
drug, by wily searching reason conjur'd up ? 
can give the tongue of joy to that death's 
counterfeit, and those rack'd statues of em- 
bodied woe, which e'en but now made up a 
smiling family of loves. 

But soft. — A death-like grief is not yet 
death. The virtuous mourners have not 
thus escap'd a world of woe. — Life yet re- 
mains; and Nature hath stem claims which 
may not be put ofT. — — They must arouse 
and ply their talents 'gainst the stream of 

troubled life. From shew of affluence 

hurl'dj- — from equal friendships torn, and 



Sect. 10 ON IMMORTALITY. 209 

humbled to the quick, — behold them sunk. 
The wonted flowing streams of curtesies now 
all dried up, or prudently through other 
channels turn'd by those who lately sought 
their converse : Rare a drop of heavenly 
sympathy, or sweet approving note, vouch- 
safd by their elect who ever claim'd the 
kindest name of friends. — By harsh. demands 
now sorely press'd, their little wreck is scat- 
ter'd to the winds ; and thus the lately gay 
and happy group is mingl'd with the dust. 

Now what a life to come ? Can they 

unmake their thoughts, or change their feel- 
ings, as they may their now too costly 
clothes with some low drudge, to suit their 

present state ? -Can they forget they once 

had wealth, polite amusements, emulating 
passions, flattering hopes; and took their 
little flights, the equals of those summer 
birds who now fly off from their cold indi- 
gence, as though some odious crime had 



210 AN ESSAY [Sect. L 

made them shunn'd ? Industry, truly, is 

their friend; 'twill doubly serve, to stay their 
needs and steep their recollection in oblivi- 
ous toil : but labour late begun, with gentle 
unprov'd hands, and grieving disappointed 
hearts, must long prove heavy, harsh, and 
faulty armour 'gainst the sharp assaults of 
barb'd adversity. 

The widow, ten fold wretched in the 
wretched lot of those her soul holds dear, 
-—her cup with bitter poisond to the brim, 
--now sorrows on : her days and nights 
make up one dismal sea continuous of woe, 
till death, — yet not a peaceful death, — pre- 
sent a dreary shore.— Disease and age as- 
sault before their time ; the world grows pi- 
tiless beyond its first neglect ; — the tortur'd 
mother's foresight casts long gloomy sha- 
dows o'er the onward course of her poor or- 
phan lambs ; and thus her Sun of Hope for 
ever sets : In secret waitings -of' despair she 



Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 211 

sees, o'ercast with horrid forms of children's 
woe, her Star now dip into the dreadful 
rising wave of dark eternity. 

O, what a fate is here if no bright land 
exist beyond this sea.— But no, the sufferer 
must not hope. — 'Tis human reason without 
hope, is here the argument, — the earthly 
state alone of man, as well as beast. 

Yet let us hasten to a close. — The forlorn 
orphan daughters, now to every chance ex- 
posed, fall into devious paths.— Their early 
wooers changed — their gentle bosoms (how 
much torn by conflicts of just pride, 'gainst 
hard contending pangs of disappointed 
choice) are now to prove the shocks of li- 
bertine assault ; — — 

______ Happy 

thrice are they if virtue still their guide : 
Self approbation is their rich reward, — Pe- 
nury, — neglect, — the want of progeny, — the 
sight of happy wives and mothers in their 

ill-disembl'd pride ;— the cold forlorn exist- 
e e 2 



m AN ESSAY [[Sect. I. 

ence of the single life, — privation of great 
Nature's glad design,— are but mere trifling 
ills, compar'd ; not worth the naming here, 
to check the rising scale. 

Vary now the action, or the actors, as we 
will ; all this is but a scene of common life, 
— a group of reason's woes of every day 
complexion, and no rarity in all the world. 
-'Tis not the bent, nor needs our argu- 
ment, to search rare instances of human woe, 
or feeling harrow up with pictures of tran- 
scendant misery. All prison doors be there* 
fore fast ; and let no dungeon groans escape 
to tell their dreadful tale : No ray of light 
pervade the dread abysses of tyrannic power, 
or inquisition cells, to raise a gorgon o'er 
the appall'd visage of the pitying eye. Let 
riot a sigh sublim'd from thirty summers* 
deep concenter'd rankling woe, distill'd from 
dungeons of a green and yellow dank, ascend 
to taint the air. — — WHAT BRUTE 
DOTH THUS TO BRUTE ?— Compar'd 



Sect. 10 ON IMMORTALITY. 213 

with such like human curtesy, is not the ti- 
ger's gripe a welcome friends embrace ; the 
deadly serpent's fang a sweet, a soothing ano- 
dyne ? — But yet, let all these ranker hot-bed 
FRUITS OF REASON, all, be hid: 
We have enough of ordinary growth to feed 

our argument. By far the oft'ner wrong is 

that wherein the body's free ; and yet the 
stricken heart is, by some villain's working, 
made itself the hopeless dungeon which con- 
ceals a woe that none on earth may loose. 
But be these also hid, there is no need to 
dip the pen in thickest gall of reason's mi- 
sery ; nor here depict such tissue work of 
agonising feelings all combin'd, of long en- 
durance fetter'd in the soul, as might make 
widow's woes flit like shadowy superficial 
troubles of a summer's dream. 

As little need we summon to this count 
the lesser rubs of life, ] the disappoint- 
ments, cares, and chagrin, of the bustling 
crowd; — the honest service left unpaid, — the 



214 AN ESSAY QSect. I. 

cheater calling honesty the cheat ;— ^vice rid- 
ing impudent, and virtue in the dust. — These 
are but scum of ills, which float along the 
stream and transient pass astern, as frothy 
ebullitions by the side of speeding bark, 
which scarce impede her way, and leave no 

mark behind. Nor bring we Nature's 

greater drama full upon the stage : — The 
horrid forms of desolating WAR, whose dire 
infernal page of actions long gone by , doth 
chace the life-blood from the christian cheek; 
— the deadly ills of pestilence and famine, 
fatal flood and fire ; — of earthquakes, storms, 
volcanic bursts, and all the vast and fatal 
visitings which compass a whole land in one 
embrace. — The very thought of these, (be- 
side the things themselves) doth canker deep 
into the anxious souls of all who ever felt 
tkem-and EXPECT TO FEEL. 

What length of book could hold the tale 
of all these miseries— what time could serve 
to wade this sea of deep distress, and mea- 



Sect ir\ ON IMMORTALITY. 215 

sure out the cares which all these bring to 

men, and not to brutes ? Could we depict 

the woes of WAR ALONE, 'twould ten 
times o'er surpass, perhaps, the total ills of 
ten times o'er the number of the brutish race. 

Brutes never war, LIKE MAN : — In 
this and many other faults they are belied. 
'Tis as men glut and get them drunk, and 
then their fellows say they act like brutes.— 
The lion wars not to maintain his offspring 
on a throne ; — the tiger arms not for some 
province which his grandsire lost, or won, 
— — No single shark claims homage of the 
narrow seas. — No crocodile claims all the 
Nile, as nat'ral limit of his proud domain.— 
Instinct's war is but a hunting ploy of kill- 
ing one by one, and that for present need. 
In brutes, men harshly call it war ; while m 
themselves (how marv'lous just) they softly 
name it needful sustenance. 

Instinctive tribes scarce ever fight in le- 
gions, never in great hosts. — They havVt 



31« AN ESSAY £Sect. L 

sense for such sublime employment, worthy 
man.— — How many brutes are innocent of 
blood in every way. And those which live, 
like man, on what hath life, but merely go to 

market, as the best men daily do. The 

brute is least destructive even here : He 
stops when he is full ; nor ever bleed whole 
hecatombs to feast his vanity . — —Take size 
for size, full oft the veriest high schooPd, 
bloodless, moral man in christian city found, 
destroys as many lives as might sustain the 
cravings of a desart pard. 

Then WAR, O HORRID WAR, we 
plainly see, is only one of REASON'S OFF- 
SPRING DIRE : and (woe the while) a 
few ambitious cruel men may ever let it 
loose, among the half wise millions of the 
human race, though nine tenths of the suf- 
fering hosts be peaceful honest christian ci- 
tizens; not urg'd, but dragg 9 d 9 to murder of 
their kind.-— -To paint the features of 
this giant ill would claim a master hand. 



Sect. I/] ON IMMORTALITY. 5217 

To line its vast extent might here suffice.— 
Be this much mark'd. In our illumin'd age, 
when Science lights the world, and pure 
Religion with her olive branch waves on for 
peace and Heaven, there's not a man alive 
who hath not liv'd while MILLIONS of his 
kind have bit the bitter dust of ruthless w ar : 
and all men surely know, the outraged, 
houseless, foodless, groaning MILLIONS left 
to curse the hour, bear dreadful deep propor- 
tion to the dead. -There's not a land on 

all the outstretch'd Earth hath in our day 
escap'd this hellish scourge. In christian 
Europe's wide embrace there's scarce a city 
points its spires to Heaven, whose father's, 
mother's, husband's, children's, deep specific 
wrongs, (besides their general wants and 
woes,) have not shriek'd out most horrible, 
obtrusive up to Heaven's high throne itself 
for load of madd'ning woe past bearing.—— 
Happy are the lingering victims left if death 
vouchsafe them speedy peace.- — The rest live 

F F 



218 AN ESSAY QSect, I. 

miserable on, to drink, (who knows how many 
times ?) the dreadful cup of new brew'd hor- 
rid war. 

In savage, and in civil life the same ; the 
bloody work doth seldom cease ; and ever 
is the cause some good, or ill, IN REA- 
SON'S VIEW ; which, lacking reason, 
man would never covet. — Instinct seldom 
slays beyond its hungers call. 

At maiis election is the sin of war, though 
few may be in fault. But still, 'TIS 
REASON'S WAR ; and man, if made in- 
stinctive, might have liv'd as free, as do the 

brutes from this dire scourge. THERE 

MUST BE CAUSE, therefore, why 
GOD hath made man thus ; while brutes yet 
live at peace beneath their instinct's law. 

Other giant ills 'twere vain to follow here, 
since one alone would fill a volume up; and 
yet 'tis but a single one of many sweeping 

woes which deluge all mankind. One 

wide, and deep, and deadly form of misery 



Sect. 10 ON IMMORTALITY. 219 

indeed there is ; which we may barely name. 
It overwhelms us in a thousand shapes : 
we call it private vice: — 'tis REASON'S 
offspring, too ; and instinct cannot give 
so dire a monster birth. — It genders quick 
in every land ; but quickest in the bed of 
luxury, now sought by high and low : and 
doth itself make up a world of woes enough 
to 'stablish our strong argument. 

But, let us hastening mark. Tis fore- 
sight leads to WAR : — 'Tis foresight leads 
to PRIVATE VICE :— and small's the sum 
of human ills, — (of feelings bitter, — passions 
dire, — and acts with evil fraught,) — but have 
their source in foresight, or its fellow. 

Foresight fills the barn, 'tis true ; and 
builds the cottage snug : and many a 
worldly good it does, be gratefully confess'd. 
But what are these to instinct's matchless 
w r orks ? The peasant's hut is easy of ac- 
cess to prowling tiger, or to prowling man ; 
and, if he 'scape them both, full oft he pe- 

F F 2 



220 AN ESSAY £Sect. I. 

rishes by creeping serpents gripe. — But, lo 
the fenceless pensile nest on slender twig, in 
magic strength of weakness safe, maintains 
its chirping garrison in loud defiance of them 
all. 

In sum. — The mind of man is constant fed 
(so wills ALLWISE OMNIPOTENCE) 

from two vast chalices, each fill'd with good 
and ill ; but oh how great the ill of what 
they make him do, and make him feel : nor 
can he shun the draught. — Whichever way 
he looks, or back, or forward, one presents 
and may not be refus'd. It must be drank 
though ne'er so bitter be it druggd ; — a 
dreadful discipline for moral purpose fit, 
from which, had man instinctive been he had 
been haply free. 

Our theme is sober truth, and not poetic 
flight. We. may not in imagination figure 
aught unfounded, with intent to lure, surprise, 
or bias fancy to our cause,— If any think the 



Sect. I.J ON IMMORTALITY. 221 

earthly vantage of instinctive life is less than 
here set forth ; we ask him which are hap- 
piest of the human race. The answer, too, 
lets take from Nature's self. — —With whom 
the cares and woes of reason least aivake, 
whose thoughts are most like thoughts of 
apes, or elephants, (if nature's greater wants 
be stay'd) content or pleasure oftenest 
dwells. 

Observe the unfledg'd infant man. Be 
sure 'tis not the fractious child of vulgar lux- 
ury, by worse than foolish parents daily 
brib'd to vice and ivoe ; but rude and coat- 
less son of lab 'ring peasant, or of savage 
wild. — Let him have food, we ask no more ; 
then, turn him loose neglected out, to ramble 
in the genial ray of Nature's fire, stark naked 
on the sward ; and let him mix in happy 
brotherhood, with playful kid and lamb, 
scarce less of reason's sons than now himself. 
From morn till night, of each succeeding 
day, the Human Elf will sport untir'd ; nor 



322 AN ESSAY £Sect. I. 

ever dream there's such a thing as tvoe in all 
the world. 

But mark our trifler, now some older 
grown and yok'd in harness of the hated 
school : — made reason's slow recruit, and 
here amenable to drill of harsh and hard 
learn'd discipline, observe his clouded care- 
fraught visage and his heartless pace. — 
Where's now conceal'd the sparkling joyous 
front; the bound elastic, which well threaten'd. 
to outdo the gambols of the mountain goat: 
— the loud though inartic'late shouts of 
struggling extacy, which needed not of mea- 
sur'd speech to make the ear-pierc'd echoing 
hills confess that he is blest ? 

I Now fast enlisted in King Reason's band, 
(but not a volunteer) the novice yields reluc- 
tant to the noble call ; and from this hour 
his cares and pains encrease in number, shape, 
and magnitude. — Pleasures, too, will some- 
times intervene ; but far more oft, by fancy 
drawn, they coyly wait in some wish'd spot 



feot ON IMMORTALITY. 223 

behind the summit of the neighbouring hill. 
The hills augment in height as he gets on. 
His soul is frequent torn and goaded to the 
quick ; and oft hurl'd desp'rate down from 
pinnacles of hope ; while venom'd foes and 
envious competitors rejoice in vollies at his 
fall. 

How many times the rugged, steep, and 
dangerous ascent, but brings him to the 
empty spot where gay deceiving pleasure, 
all inviting, lately lay. — By some enchant- 
ment of his changeful state, the wish'd pos- 
session proves a fruitless husk,— the outward 
semblance, only, of a joy ; Or, worse perhaps, 
the bitter worm, corrupt, hath occupied the 
space within ; and made th' expected 

BANQUET LOATHSOME EVERY WAY. 

Suppose his journey with fair fortune 
crown'd ; he sickens at his ease, — flies back 
for cure and solace to his wanted cares; and 
now finds out, his toiVs his greatest pleasure 
after all. His pleasures (when they come,) 



224 AN ESSAY [Sect. T. 

are seldom so sublime, so sweet, or half 
so innocent, as instinct's infant gambols 
on the grass. 

A rare exalted few, sublimer pleasures 
feel.— They wed the sciences, — the arts ; — 
and soaring high in intellectual realms, 
scarce feel the common storms of vulgar life. 

But few are they, can breathe so thin 

an air : such flight celestial is tli exception, 

not the rule -The million's lungs must 

feed on thicker atmosphere : They're born 
to drudge below, on sordid Earth.— The 
mass of men must rest content with vulgar 
arts, nor feed on arts refin'd : Not all the 

power of luxury can alter this. Our 

theme's THE MILLION,— not the favor d 
few. — Already have we soar'd a mile above 
the level mass, and pictur'd roads to hap- 
piness which never yet were open to the 
crowd. Return we, then, to average of hu- 
man lot, for general truth lies there : But 
this in passing say, that as mere earthly 



Sect. I/] ON IMMORTALITY. 225 

things, the prince, or million ; senator, or 
sage; may not compare in happiness with 
playsoine children, or with thoughtless brutes. 

In those fair happy Isles which stud the 
vast extent of half the drowned Earth, and 
other savage lands where food abounds, we 
find man happiest of his kind. And, but 
his horrid wars, and superstitious fears, 
and cruel rites ; (all fruits of reason's 
growth,) he e'en might vie in happiness 
with instinct's happiest sons. 

To feasted peasants and to children turn 
for earthly bliss, — the village revel, or the 
school let loose ; — the skipping lamb,— the 
ape, — the elephant ; — nay, any of a thousand 
living things with food supplied, except 
clear reasoning carefraught man devoid of 
future hope. 

Now pause we here, and just conclusion 

draw from what is manifest. Instinctive 

tribes are gaily light of moral, physical, and 
intellectual ills.— The first, they little know : 

G G 



226 AN ESSAY j^Sect. I. 

—The next, a tenth, perhaps, of what men 
feel : — The last and greatest — (Reason's flood 
of particolour'd bitterness) they never taste 
at all. Now be it also niark'd, that un- 
derstanding is not needed for continuance 
of life, since many kinds of brutes outlive 

the life of man. It follows then, — there 

must be full SUFFICIENT CAUSE 

WHY THIS VAST SOURCE OF EARTHLY ILLS IS 
THUS APPENDED TO THE HUMAN MIND. 

The cause behold is manifest, and wel- 
come makes the woe : For how could moral 

discipline devoid of knowledge be. The 

mind destin'd to act a moral part, must 
surely taste of various ills, — must surely 
back, and forward look ; and thus drink 
daily o'er and o'er, of all the bitter in the 

cup. If less might satisfy appointed 

right, yet all must needs be drank. — — To 
taste the tree of knowledge and not evil 
taste with good, were sheer impossible ; the 
thought which fathoms one, embraces, sure, 



Sect. I.]] ON IMMORTALITY. 227 

the other one commix'd. Hence, ever, as J 
we view and wish for future good, we need 
must see and fear for future ill ; and thus 
drink pain, as well as pleasure, from the 

knowledge cup. But this gives joyous 

hope of future land, beyond the bitter sea 
on whose turmoil our bark is toss'd ; — be- 
cause, from view of dark instinctive tribes 
we see, we might have been made tenants 
of a long and happy life, without a fifth of 
actual human ills : though none can see that 
we could hope beyond the brute without 
some trial fit. 

Instinctive tribes we still reserve for view 
in yet more happy scenes. And thus we 
then may bring our purpose to a close. 
The argument which proves that GOD IS 
GOOD, proves here as ivett our hope of fu- 
ture life; WHILE ONE DOTH HOLD 
THE OTHER CANNOT FAIL. For 
in instinctive blessings wide diffus'd to 
minds which cannot thank, we surely read 

G G 2 



228 AN ESSAY £Sect. h 

his mercy's pledge, HE would not load his 
thankful creatures with unnecessary woe. — 
In giving to base kinds such enviable good 
with ignorance, HE surely had no need, 
and would not light impart to men to make 
them find a dismal way to sin and mi- 
sery. 



Sect. II.] 



ON IMMORTALITY. 



929 



SECTION SECOND. 



CONTINUATION AND CONCLUSION OF THE IL- 
LUSTRATIVE MORAL ARGUMENT, 



The gifts of Providence to Earth's in- 
stinctive tribes, are measur'd in degrees.— 
Some kinds are favor'd more, and others 
less; and all are frail and vulnerable in their 
earthly coil: — inevitable tax of their organic 
state. But all live free untax'd by reason's 
ills, and that's what chiefly makes them 
blest : Yet His not all.— — Their consti- 
tutions, ways, and elements, admit variety 



230 AN ESSAY [[Sect. tt. 

of joys which man's economy forbids. At 
best he may but poorly ape them ; and, 
for most part, rarely dares attempt. 

5 Tis true, some brutish kinds appear ex- 
ceptions to the general state : the snake, 
the toad, the mole, and various other tribes, 
enjoy (as seems to us) no enviable lot. But 
even these may have content we never can 
appreciate. — Do we not mark, when in lux- 
urious softness man hath slept, and vacant 
floats his mind 'twixt sleep and vigilance ; — • 
the motley pictur'd swift ethereal current of 
his memory stopt, and light turn'd windmill 
fancy, now becalm'd, moves on no spoke ; — 
existence bare confessed, with soothing sense of 
warmth and indolence; — WHAT TRUE 

CONTENT HE FEELS. Pleas'd with 

the soft enchantment of his powers; — the 
sweet oblivious slavery of tyrant sleep, 
stretch'd e'en to waking realms ; — this less 
than Dreamer deprecates all change, 
and sorely murmurs if necessity goad up to 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 231 

action, or to thought. — Now whisper him 
that banquets wait his rise, — that beauty 
waits. — See if he stir, how well soe'er he 
understand the call. All's one ; to down bed 

doth he cleave, like limpet to the rock. 

Hail'd, hallow'd, be this region of the drowsy 
blest, beyond confines of moody Reason's 
rule. — Let no rude vulgar lazy things intrude, 
unless by stealth. Do we not see, 'tis regal 
lordly land : the high voluptuous alone are 
herein free to range, and lose themselves in 
bliss. — The graceless sons of indigence, m uch 
prone to sloth, do oftimes long to lounge 
them in these realms ; but well we know 3 

such treats are for their betters made 

Now tell us, Sceptic, why the sleeping snake^ 
the limpet, clam, and cockle, and a thousand 
other tribes, may not dispute the point of this 
choice happiness with all the pampered of the 
human kind? 

But truly, some instinctive kinds may 
well be made less happy than our race ; 



232 AN ESSAY [Sect II. 

nor can it matter here, since man must 
surely be compar'd with highest, not with 

lowest brutes. Do lives of brutes refer 

to past, or future? Who knows this? — Tis 
not our present search to know why good- 
ness is gradual in brutes. 

Of tribes already told, comparison doth 
ample promise yield : But let us now the 
theme pursue, that thoughtless things are 
happiest here. The truth once well sur- 
vey'd, the inference is plain. 

Turn we, then, to feather d tribes, where Na- 
ture's choicest favors seem to fall. — What 
man hath never wish'd to be a bird, — to put 
\ on wings and soar sublime through bound- 
less ether ; — sporting with round Earth, as 

with a foot-ball. Sport it surely were, to 

sail o'er states of princes, — palaces of kings ; 
— and from aloft to see aspiring temples, py- 
ramids, and fleets, (the pride of our earth- 
pacing master, lordly man) now here, now 
there, as they were kick'd by wanton birds 



Sect. ON IMMORTALITY. 233 

from side to side : A higher game, to see 

the tempest's sport, — the billows' wreck : 
— the heaving intrails of volcanic Earth with 
hideous beliowings burst forth, o'er whelming 

land and sea. -To view the Earthquake 

frighting noisy Ocean from his bed, and then 
again the coward Sea, in mad and dire re- 
venge, regorging all its own and many a 
mile of land beside, with all the hapless sons 

of man that hour the tenants. Doubtless 

it were sight sublime to witness all this hor- 
ror's jubilee pf human woes ; and we ourselves 
on high, quite safe, — unruffled even by the 
slightest trembling tip of Fear's misgiving 
wing. 

Lo the royal eagle, soaring to the sun ; 
looking down majestic on the realms of 
kings: his breast not troubl'd by the cares 
of state, not torn by thwarted love of unjust 
power, not ruffi'd even by the virtuous cares 
of well rul'd monarchs. Grand he soars 

without annoyance ; sporting all his happy 

H H 



*34 AN ESSAY £Sect. II, 

hours in undisputed reign : — Wants he can 

have none, for he commands when fit. 

His thoughts as tranquil as his floating wing, 
why would he change with Caesar, and be- 
come the voluntary peaceless victim of 'pre- 
carious rule ? 

Ye travellers of ardent mind and curious 
eye, who wander through the Earth's four 
quarters ; — care and scant supply your sad 
companions, — toil your weary sport ; — danger 
and want your oft unwelcome haps for house 
and plenteous fare : — melancholy wanderers 
far from friends and kindred, none to sym- 
pathise when ye are sad, or sentiment ex- 
change when wonder urges speech ; — what 
would ye not give, in many a dismal hour, 
to share the safe companionable easy wing 
of emigrating birds, which sail in social fleets 
from land to land, and cheerful sympathising 
ever on the way exchange sweet notes of 
brotherly response? 

Observe the happy Cranes. — When fancy 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 235 

moves their flight, they change a clime, al- 
most in the same while that ye can change 
a vest, to suit your clam'rous feel from cold 
to warm. And on the vagrant voyage of 
their choice, when stronger call of hunger 
pleads, or daily march is done, they take a 
leisure telescopic view of a whole realm at 
once, and mark some favor'd spot : Then, 
cowering down upon the sweet romantic 
lake, well stor'd with choicest food and wel- 
come resting place,, in pleasure pass the 

night. Their swampy citadel, secure 

without defence, (to foes of perilous access,) 
is ready fortified by Nature's hand ; and in 
this hospitable fairy caravans'ra nought is 
wanting to secure their peace. 

Those favor'd birds, while daily glutting 
their insatiate eyes with all the Earth's va- 
riety of scene, have not to fear, as men must 
justly do, the meeting with their kind: nor 
violence nor treachery is found in their fra- 
ternity. Serene on wing, they let the lion 

hh2 



i36 AN ESSAY £Sect. It 

pass : — The deadly serpent, horrible to us, to 

them's a welcome treat. They jeer, or 

pity, hapless human victims of inclement 
skies, to earthly \ fate fast chain'd : Their 
wings are magic bridges, never broke 
mountain flood ; but, at their wills out- 
spread, join distant continents by waters 
sever'd far. — They make one step from foul 
to fair degree : — their winters but as far from 
summer, as the night from morn, — the journey 

of a day, In pelisses of down (like alf 

the rest the special gift of Heaven) they 
warmly sail, and sleep ; nor is this all : The 
Sun himself s their ample wardrobe; and ill 
mere course of flight, they coyly choose how 
many plies of Solar Ray they will put on, to 
hold their happy talk, as they sail onward 
through ethereal realms of sweet and bound- 
less liberty. 

Bold, rational, and virtuous sailor Cook; 
and all ye meritorious travellers in virtue's 



Sect H.3 ON IMMORTALITY. m 

cause, by sea and land ; how hard, compared, 
your human lot if ye be not immortal? 

Philanthropic Howard, matchless son of 
Heav'nly Sympathy, did'st thou deserve so 
hard a life, and birds so happy made, unless 
thou art made happier NOW ? 

Little think the favor'd few who plume 
themselves on worldly joys, and deem all 
made for them, how happy live the birds. 
An instance, here, long memory supplies from 
milder climes of all-enlivening Ind ; when 
night stay'd on the margin of a lake, the tra- 
veller from sleep aroused, in secret saw 
hard by his latent crib, the orgies of a group 
of vagrant wild birds — (millions strong) — - 

which later came to revel out the night. 

The scene was witchery ; and fairy land the 
place. The moon shone bright, — the wind 
blew soft, — the ambush tiger, sated; slept or 
silent lay ; — and nought in Nature seem'd to 
wake, but happy birds and marvelling man, 
and thought of GOD who made them thus. 



33S AN ESSAY [Sect. H« 

The orgies had commenced, — the feast be- 
gun : — The weed, (ambrosial food for duck- 
ling epicure) seem'd plenteously supplied, 
as if by hidden spirits of the deep. — And 
now the happy clan, much burden'd with 
their bliss, could scarcely glut their grosser 
hungry sense, for idle wish, obtrusive, to 
speak out their extacy in stammering talk, 
— Incessant was the gabble of their joy; and 
envious it would have made our many a 
hungry office-man, to mark the lengthened 
gust with which they fed. — Nor were the re- 
vels bounded here. The restless wanton 
welcome strife of love rag'd far, — the desul- 
tory courtship constant broke the order of 
the feast • and happy riot seem'd to reign, 

amid new peals of gabbling exultation. 

Meanwhile Nature, pleas'd, presided at this 
banquet c(tm(&, and lent her cheering aid : 
For lucid moon-beams, as if smit with soft 
contagion, smiling kiss'd the trembling bo- 
som of the lake ; and dancing lightly, seem'd 



Sect. 11.2 ON IMMORTALITY. 239 

to play enlivening measures brisk, in unison 
with all their joys. 

This is no fairy tale, but philosophic 
truth : The life lives poorly in the sketch ; 
and word, perhaps, could not describe the 
bliss then felt by MILLIONS of the mean- 
est brutish minds. — It struck the traveller 
deep, though harden'd long in slaughter of 
their race ; and such the sanction cast around 
their now unguarded heads by reason's view 
of happiness design'd by Heaven, that, shame 
struck of himself, he let his thunder sleep, 

repress'd its murd'rous tongue. The 

gabblers joy'd, and slept, untouch'd by 
chasten'd man ; and pass'd that once scot 
free by law of sympathy. 

Shall we the human orgies here bring in : 
not fetes of every day, as with these happy 
birds ; indeed but rarely known among our 
million class ; among the rich what are they, 
when they come, but heartache meetings big 
with pain.— It were indeed a breathless task 



240 AN ESSAY £Sect. II. 

to run the catalogue of poisons mixM in Hu- 
man Revels' pleasure-killing cup. — Had we 

not better spare the theme. The few past 

lisping youth who present pleasure taste, too 
often find it prove a fever's dream with fatal 
issue fraught: And, even, when the din of 
joy is high, if we could count the canker'd 
hearts and malcontents, against the happy 
ones, the odds would tell a melancholy tale. 

To childhood only it is sterling gold ; — 

to youth 'tis silver, yet not unalloy'd; — to age 
mature, at best, scarce else than drossy lead, 
if Reason hold the helm. 

Childhood finds some gold in every ore, — 
childhood blythe, where urchins live the an- 
tipodes of sad Reason's soris, and farthest 

off from forethought, as from woe. 'Tis 

in that happy realm we may dispute of bliss 
with playsome brutes. Its much lov'd pic- 
ture never total fades, but lives in latest 
memory and holds a polar influence o'er the 
heart. — Behold the veteran at farthest verge 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 241 

of life, fall facing to his earthy goal, turns 
round, magnetic drawn, and trembling points 
his unavailing wish to long past infant scenes. 
— The Soldier, or the Statesman, after toss- 
ing on the stormy sea of life, immers'd in all 
the little greatness of the world, at length 
discerns the vanity of human hopes, and casts 
regretting looks far back to childhood's days : 
where fond he recognises happiest hours.—- 
Now would he cling (if fate had not debarrd) 
his dying hopes to those sweet early scenes. 
— The town and all its silly mock he quits, 
and seeks his natal spot, — the scenes first 
mark'd by pleasures imalloyd and unconta- 
minate: Here conj'ring up in recollection's 
eye each memorable ploy, each day's adven- 
ture that befell him ; fain would he cheat his 
cank'ring care with shades of buried joys. 

So when the wafry -fated ship, long 

shatter'd on her way, now hapless urges east 
the trembling prow, into the gloom of her last 

coming night ; while all around, above, the 
I i 



<2i2 AN m&m uSect II, 

sky o'ercast with stormy darkness, big with 
fate, forbids next morning's hope; the pen- 
sive seaman, mournful o'er the stern, casts 
back one soften'd glance at his last parting 
Sim. — He, sighing, recollects at outset of 
his voyage its glorious rise, in vast refulgent 
beauty undefinYl, and all the promises its 
golden aspect gave. And now, while he 
would clutch it in his eye, and fix it there ; 

behold, 'tis gone and Darkness hath 

its place : — Hope's earthly luminary, lo, 
from him is ever fled ; and nought remains 
to contrast with the chaos of his doom, but 
small faint gilded gleams, lamented lovely, 
shooting farewell rays from far horizon's 
parting verge, through the thick curtain of 
eternal night, to all rays else impervious. 
— Sweet lamented glittering thornless hour 
of uncheck'd infancy; thus looks it in the 
eye of overcast hopeless age. 

On bleak and dreary hills, blown bald by 
wintVy North, a callow stranger first drank 



Sect. II.] ON IMMORTALITY. 213 

deep, the wild romantic pleasures of a moun- 
tain life. With tender limbs of few years 

pith, an urchin group stray'd joyous daily 
forth ; and scrambled as they could, till 
storm-worn summits met them and confess'd 
their toil. — They mingTd with the goat-herds, 
and their goats; sought berries and sweet 
mountain roots; approach'd the stately 
eagle's royal burgh, and, in shrill vollies of 
their feeble boasts, menac'd the airy mo- 
narch on his throne. In lands so little 

blest, what sweets do childish minds ex- 
tract. The nest disco ver'd, stor'd with cu- 
rious eggs, or chirping young : The wanton 
wilings of the spotted trout, from cunning 
cover view'd : The bold diversity of moun- 
tain, — valley, — precipice, — and dell ; — each 
promising a treat to young untraveli'd eyes, 
and paying at the least, some undefined im- 
pression of great Natures way. — Scenes 
kind for germ of young reflection, whispering 

to the infant soul the awful thought of cause, 
i i 2 



$44 AN ESSAY QSeefc II. 
—^-EFFECT ; — Of WISDOM, and Of POWER. 

Bat, now the modest beauties of the scene ; 
(beauties, sure, in unfastidious childhood's cu- 
rious eye,) — the starv'd nude hills confess'd, 
yet decently begirt with belts of verdant fir ; 
the dales with shrub, and corn, and pasture 
variously beset; but, above all in child- 
hood's eye, the yellow fragrant charms of 
furze, and broom, diffusing golden glories 
over all the waste. — Ye damask roses hide 
your lovely blush ; for who will give you 
preference unseen? — Who ever sigh'd for 
tints of sweet Circassian bower, who never 

saw but hues of Scottish broom? -Earthly 

blest is he who's clad in ignorance, the 
happy magic curtain of the soul ; which, 
shutting out comparison with good we know 
not, magnifies so passing vast the good we 
know ; which hiding all the ills that may be- 
fall us, sinks our mountain cares to mole- 
hills, o'ertop'd by an infant's step. 

Yet now the active urchins onward press, 



Sect. IIJ ON IMMORTALITY. 245 

and try a doubtful path, the niggard curtesy 
of rocky chasm ; where sidling cautious, 
close, within its rugged jaw, with vent'rous 
footsteps (e'en by goatherd feard,) they up- 
ward gain.— And here they pass the brawl- 
ingCataract, demanding superstitious tribute 
of a stone ; which each threw in as he went 
safely by, impress'd with awe, with wonder, 
and with din. — — — Some standing place 
secur'd, all turn and inward muse ; as if by 
musing they, perchance, might find what 
language mystic speaks the murmuring 
stream, as down it plunges, urg'd by fate, 

into the foamy dark abyss. -Had it but 

sense,— had the d^ad fluid but the sense of 
poor short-witted man, our gazers might con- 
ceit, it (much mistaken) loud bewail'd the 

thought, it ne'er should rise again. Here 

gloomy Sceptic thou may'st learn to hope. 
. How couldst thou know, with no more view 
than when the torrent sinks, that by AL- 
MIGHTY FIAT it must rise when down ; 



9M AN ESSAY pect. II. 

and, mixing with its kind, shall then in con- 
course blythe behold that glorious light in 
which it loves to dwell? How could thou 
dream that, rising hence, it shall mean- 
der sweetly through a maze of beauteous 
scenes ; and all the while itself be deep 
imbued with that glad light which all adore ? 

Pondering here our silent group,— query- 
ing each the narrow council of his thoughts, 
— Lo, sapient Contemplation, watching such 
fair pause, now steals into the mind : and 
here, perhaps, the noble seed of intellec- 
tual thirst is first embosom'd in the in- 
fant soul. So august Nature gently works. 
—The full grown wisdom of the sage, (as 
is his gross corporeal frame,) is first engen- 
der^ by some little spec of rudiment, too 
small for careless sense : — Else is it like 
the mighty oak, first prison'd in the acorn— ; 
spilt upon the plain : Then either forc'd by 
some kind turn into the deep, rich, vivifying 
bosom of a mother soil, whence sprouting 



Sect. 11.^3 ON IMMORTALITY. 24? 

high, it towers it o'er the lesser woods, in 
grand imperial majesty ; — or, left unnourisltd 
on the surface, rots. 

Happy yon, ye towering Oaks of wisdom 
early nurs'd : — Planted, — water'd, — foster'd, 
— rear'd by kindly care to high majestic 
eminence. How enviably sweet your grate- 
ful part, to spread your fostering branches 
o'er your Species far, and pay them shelter in 
a thousand shapes. We all have know- 
ledge, full enough, to gather woe. But ye 
alone can shed down antidotes, and teach us 
how to gather them. 

Here, sated with their gaze, with one ac- 
cord the boys face round, break silence, and 
ply up the devious track which leads to al- 
pine heights. The summit gain'd, how 

GRAND. HOW CALM the bliss ; — SERENE IN- 
EFFABLY : — —the visual grasp of objects 
making gods of men; or men of children, 
sure. For in the single bound of one eye 
glance, seems Earth and all its greatness 



|*« AN ESSAY [Sect, II. 

to a little toy some form compress'd.— — The 
soul, expanding by the eye, lills all the con- 
cave of imagin'd Heaven : — carrying pigmy 
Earth, as 'twere in hand ; or, trundling it a 

ball beneath a mortal's foot.— Behold 

the fertile sunny South; — the icy North ; 
— the hazy East begirt with sea, whence 
thund ring Navies which command a world 
appear in specs scarce seen : though spread- 
ing out their huge expansive canvass to the 
breeze, they make like minute insects wings 
which hardly catch the eye. — So looks all 
earthly grandeur when the Soul is self- 
rais'd high sublime, and measures Earth with 
Heaven. — — And lo the misty West ; where 
hills with hills, tumultuous rising, clash : as 
if by hand Omnipotent the mad rebellious 
Ocean, heaving high his giant legions 'gainst 
the cope of Heaven, were with his host fast 
frozen at a poise, — their snowy sparkling 
crests arrested in their vaunt; in shapes 
we've seen them take, as loud the swagger- 



S«ct. II/J ON IMMORTALITY. 249 

ing bullies rac'd each other round the stormy 
Empire of the Southern Pole. 

O favor'd much ; to see all this, and think 

of HIM who lets. How many sermons 

live envelop'd in such pithy texts. 

Sometimes, as chance, or fancy led the 
ploy, our playsome wand'rers took the far 
retir'd lake; from whose black bosom's 
depth, 'twas awful told, a Daemon nightly 
wander'd forth to prowl, and (horrid) oft 

on Virgins by the moon-light fed.— 

But in the day, full well they knew, some 
better spirit ruPd ; which granted youthful 
merit high rewards. — If memory prove true, 
and magic mock not, have been seen (grant 
process fit) both Crowns and Sceptres 
moving from the surface of the mystic deep, 
and gracing well the hands and temples of 
ingenious worth : not in mere phantacy of 
airy show, but all of real rush. And much 
we question here (in sober mood) if older 
kings have often sat more lightsome 'neath 

K K 



^ AN ESSAY £Sttt. II. 

their golden loads, than these beneath 
their grass. 

Various other ploys made up the round of 
happiest infant life ; which, (then how sweet 
soever) here to older ears alike insipid, we 
forego* 

Ye Learned, patience grant our shatter'd 
chronicle of infant sports. Tis fit ye know 
that we who praise the dishy have tasted it. 

'Tis truth ye seek. The question here 

is, who is earthly happiest, of all that 

breathe. This bliss, we lowly wean, lies 

far beneath you, smoking with the savage in 
his hut ; or gambolling with goatherd's chil- 
dren on the grass ; or slumbering with some 
drowsy Lord, or Limpet, — wedded to a 
dream :— Or yet, more like, it sits embotverd 
in deepest umbrage of the verdant groves ; 
not silent, seeking lore, but blythe from 
feather'd clarions making all the valleys 
echoing ring. — Nay, peradventure it may dwell 
with you, whose tranquil courts I never trod: 



Sect 110 ON IMMORTALITY. 251 

But, for the general mass, the least with 
vain luxurious man ; with savage more ; yet 
more with children; but the most with favor d 
brutes, lives smooth-facd sweet Content, 
lives joy, lives extacy. — Wherever In- 
stinct holds her revels and her rest, far 
down from calculating Reason's moody 
realms ; or man, or child, or brute, or savage, 
be the wight, his happiness js long and uu« 
alloy'd, — his pains but momentary, 

Childhood past, suppose we take the 
broadest base of human joys, — the great- 
est sum of wholesome pleasure found ;— in 
every clime, in every rank, to every in- 
dividual, equal good: The greatest we 
shall find (when urgent wants are stayd) 
consist in quaffing fresh elastic air, 
with change of various scenes; by swift 

and easy exercise made nearly bliss. 

Extatie joys but fleeting moments fill ; they 
stand exceptions to our general state: True 

happiness more properly belongs to appetites 
kk2 



!M« AN ESSAY QSect II. 

which bear a lengthen d gust. Mark how 

the horseman files,— the skater glides, — the 
boatmen 'vie in swiftness o'er the main :■ — 
And, lacking means like these, the active 
mountaineer, on springing sinews hors ? d, 
bounds him delighted on from hill to hill ; 
making sport of danger in his devious dance, 
his keen romantic sight drinks horrid joy 
from mists of cataracts, at distance far be* 
neath. 

For sweets like these, not only will the 
money-drudge forsake his golden toil ; but 
fortunes favor'd minions sicken in their ease, 

and home-stay'd cannot be content. So 

great the nat'ral pleasure is, that ag'd and 
halt, who cannot home forsake, will take 
some mock content to sit at door apd sec 
the distant sports ; and thus strain hard to 
drink a second time, the dregs of pleasure's 
empty cup.— The storm-wprn state is left to 
steer itself; — the palace empty stands; — e'en 
sweet domestic lovely woman's charms, and 



Sect. 110 ON IMMORTALITY. 253 

social bliss, neglected lie,— ^br exercise un- 
couth, — rude fields, — rough seas, — and drear 
inclement skies. 

The anxious mother's hope, soft petted in 
effeminate caress, by artful wiles escapes her 
vigilance ; and, mixing with the ragged 
swarm of half-fed labour's truant sons, skims 
gaily o'er the smooth fac'd ice, delighted to 
the full : nor stops his pleasure till the day 
be done. — And mark we, here, how equal is 
the gift of animal delight in Nature's general 
feast. The rich forgets he*s rich:— The poor 
ne'er thinks of poor: but on they fly, and 

happiest is the first. Though cold and 

hunger knock at both their nerves, they long 
may knock in vain ; and, when the day is 
spent, the heir slinks home as little willing, 
as the hind. 

From this we gain faint notion of the plea- 
sures felt by finn'd, and feather'd tribes, 
— by sportive dolphins, — tranquil sailing 
kites ; by swallows and by swans, — as swift 



2*4 AN ESSAY £Sect. II. 

and easily they glide through yielding ele- 
ments. From pole to tropic range 

the happy fish ; the happy birds from 
tropic back to pole, — as change of season 

tempts. Their roads are ready made; 

their equipage complete : their inns are fur- 
nish'd well with food and bed ; and PRO- 
VIDJENCE, (their z,ib'ral host,) ne'er 
calls but to one final count.— — The rest 
with them, is horsing, skating, boating, bound- 
ing ;— call it what we will i — In truth, 'tis 
far before them all ; 'tis easy sailing, and 
embraces recreating change of all these va- 
rious joys. 

Our element and frame forbid such 

length of joy : our motions are unfit- — 

Our greatest, longest joys are of this kind; 
but yet how tax'd, curtailed, and partial, 
when compared. -Times must be studi- 
ed ; and the seasons to© % nor must the 
cares and duties of our state neglected lie. 
_,w_„I n civilis'd commune, few of the 



Sect. 11.2 ON IMMORTALITY. 255 

million may such pleasures taste, without 
some duty broke, some detriment. Of man- 
kind none but children, savages, and lords, — 
like happy birds and fish, — make pleasure 
serve for toil; or, follow up their vagrant 
sports from morn till night, excluding other 
cares. 

Vain were it here to talk of intellectual 

pleasures tasted by the mass. — Tis true, 

some men reflect as they fly on ; and higher 
pleasures drink, with grosser, in the chace : 
but this is not, nor ever can be, true in mass. 
- — -The herd of men in civil, as in savage 
life, regale them on the grosser and the hum- 
bier joys.— — Mark when a City sends its 
sunday myriads forth : what are the plea- 
sures that these beings feei ? -Vague ani- 
mal delight, like that which glads the new 
uncoupl'd hound :— To them a nameless cheer- 
fulness diffus'd through every mind ; which 
all confess, but few can well describe.— — If 
Intellect they have, 'tis seldom ask'd to tell 



256 I AN ESSAY TSect. IL 

its story here. More oft, 'tis sent to sleep, 
like brawling child, that joy may not be 
marr d ; nor wakes till Monday s wants de- 
mand anew. —A troop of northern her- 
rings new let loose, and wantoning in south- 
ern sun-beams warm, takes pleasure such as 
this : nor can we certain say, which side ex- 
ults with odds ; unless in this, that with the 
watery race 'tis Sunday every day. 

But, wholesome heart-some action laid apart, 
—what do the mass of men use most, that 
sottish Witch to raise which mankind plea- 
sure call? Potation's deep, — ill drug, 

— and opiate weed, — and all the vap'ring 
family of reason-drowning charms, jwhich 
reason's self doth charm from chemic 
depths. 

Scarce had Ocean gathered up his mantle, 
vast, which whole the Earth had earst o'er- 
spread ; — scarce had the Earth a breathing 
time, to suck in store of nectar from the 



Sect. HZ] ;0N IMMORTALITY. 257 

Sun ; when man, like some o'er-laden jade 
impatient of the load, shook off his galling 
reason and sat up to brew. The Scrip- 
ture tale is simply told, and bears internal 
witness of its truth : for so do men e'en now, 
and ever since. -Thus mariners, from 
shipwreck haply snatch'd, fly straitway to 
red Bacchus' coffers with a fix'd resolve r 
nor joy they less to have from reason scap'd, 
than now from fate. — Cheated of their cares 
by magic poison, mark their witless glad- 
ness in their eyes, — those portals lately 
guarded by stern thoughts, where moody 
leader reason, watching, gravely sat. But 
reason (thanks to Reason) shipwreck'd like 
their ship, lies drown'd ; and they are doubly 
free. E'en Hell himself may roar, and Horror 
look aghast ; they jeer the fun and crack 
rude jokes with Destiny : shaking bully 
Danger by the beard ; and teazing growling 
Fate, as 'twere a terrier's pup, full impotent 
as mad.- O monstrous freak: but true, 

L L 



\ 



253 AN ESSAY tSeci. lh 

—SO PRESENT SWEET, and yet SO 
DIREFULL BAD A THING, it is to 

drotvn fair reason in our cups. 

But yet, will man a wholesome warning 

take ?— Oh no.- — From sportive scenes 

cut off,— denied of brother pleasures to the 

brutes, — or wearied in his sports ; in 

house, or ship, or prison, pent ; — to place con- 
fin'd, no matter what the cause; — man's 
greatest care is aye to mar reflection, and in 
thought to get as near instinctive dullness 

as he can. -Few can resist exhilarating 

juice; or stop while Reason steers. The 
MILLION drink to raise a sottish charm, 
oblivious in its hue ; nor feel content till 

FROM THEMSELVES ESCAFD. 

Four Quarters of the Earth, I call you 
witness to this truth. Then say which men 
seek most, or reason's, or instinctive 
joys? 

"Twere well did truth stop here, — did 
higher mental gifts to nobler pleasures cling, 



Sect. 110 ON IMMORTALITY. 259 

or knoivledge .prove a bar to baser gusts. — 
Far other is the truth : for genius hath a 
deadly thirsty and learning is dry work, as 
many a scholars practice plainly shows. — 
Nay, Priests ('tis said) are sometimes well 
content to dim their clearer views of Heaven 
in Tuscan Clouds: and Sages have been 
known to smile on Folly through a flask. 

Great Cato drunk, and staggeri ug in the 
way, takes all the blush from patriarchal 
slips. — Tis Human Nature's slip: nor Pa- 
triarch's, nor Cato's. 

WHO RUNS MAY READ. The 

MILLION throw off Reason when they can : 
nor take it up again, hut when they must. 
- — — Philosophy has nought to bear with 
what men SAY :— 'tis what they DO deter- 
mines her decree. 

What here the inference. Is reason, 
then, not good? — Is godlike reason not a 
heavenly gift ? — Are we below the brutes? 
— -Fair Reason hail. Sublimely good 

L L 2 



2«0 AN ESSAY [[Sect IL 

art Thou. Thou teachest us of GOD, and 
dost point out his way. — In this one gift is 
all contain'd that highest thought can reach. 
O boundless, boundless good ; to have a soul 
(some preparation past) which may eternal 
feed on rays shot forth from Wisdom, Power, 
and Mercy infinite. — Who then will say, 
thou art not good ? 'Tis only manifest, when 
side by side with instinct plac'd, thou art 
NOT PRESENT SWEET ; Else, of m- 
ductive certainty, men ne'er would waste 
their days in glutting on low trash of gross 
instinctive joys ; full often at dire cost : Nor 
would they cozen thee (O act most strange) 
to treason 'gainst thyself, and cunning arts 
invent to steal themselves from thy true 
wholesome rule, to wallow hoggishly in all 
the brutish joys which, when repentant, 
they condemn, forsooth. 

But, now return we to conclude of fea- 
ther'd tribes. What language can de- 
scribe their happy state in Nature's happier 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 261 

climes : — their countless species, numbers, 

beauties, sports. Ye who have trod the 

tropic regions wide, well know how vain 
th' attempt to paint the way in which great 
Nature teams with feather d life, — and fea* 
therd life with bliss. 

Among the countless kinds, one tribe may 
here suffice ; not happier aught than other 
kinds, but ready in our retrospective view ; 
— the cooing amorous doves, enlivening all 
the plain. — — O'er many a sun-beat realm 
they spread : not congregated cold, and void 
of soft partic'lar bent ; but leagu'd in wed- 
ded pairs, some steps from other pairs de~ 
tach'd, they occupy all field, and tree, and 
bush) and cottage top : like other lovers 
true, who care not for the place, so they in 

converse meet. -Some thousand pairs 

may be within the range of one observant 
eye ; and, covering thus the land, they make 
the air incessant echo back their three-! iv'd 
cooing tenors, trembling sweet and softly 



£62 AN ESSAY [Sect. II. 

to a lingering' cadence on the ear. All 

Nature seems to live in sound, as well as 
scene : The numerous intermingling tones of 
well paid love ne'er cease the liv'long prime 
of day ; but, cheering all around, diffuse con- 
tagious joy throughout the soul of man, and 

gently force him into placid thoughts. 

O day of youth, this scene, ineffable, calls 
up thy buried shade: For in your time the 
triple happy murmurs of the cooing race did 
daily add new zest to morning life. Tis in 
that morning life that most like you, ye un- 
reflecting birds, we are most gay ; and make 

ourselves false promises of life to come. 

E'en now the phantom memory of your 
notes calls up (associate link'd) faint mo- 
mentary ghosts of long departed joys, which 
when they liv'd were, for the most part, sha- 
dows lacking shape and void of permanence. 

Though vast advantage lies with brutes, in 
all their grosser joys ; a greater vantage yet 
seems theirs, if measurd fair. In man's 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 263 

mistaken estimate all brutish happiness is 
written GROSS. What strange perverse- 
ness in our race, to shut the eye on truth. 
As man doth learn from frogs to swim ; 
from spiders craft to weave ; from ants and 
bees to build ; E'en so from many a brute may 
he learn kindness, friendship, peace, and love, 
— Joys and duties* noblest, sweetest, he may 
learn ; and when, like brutes, he's knit in 
partnership of virtuous cares and constancy, 
'tis then he forms the strongest bulwark 
Against the woes of life. 

Happy wast thou Adam ; out of Eden 
cast, yet blest beneath the curse, possess- 
ing Eve ; thy high hope's bane, 'tis true, 
but through life's future cares how sweet 
the antidote : — Not partner of t!:y body and 
its labours sheer ; but as it were the double 
of thyself, imparting more than twice an in- 
dividual's strength to bear the load.- — 
From Paradise when first thy sight was sick- 
en'd at the view of Earth accurs'd, alone 



«6i AN ESSAY ' CSeet. It. 

how hadst thou stood the shock? But cast- 
ing back a look on Eve whose eye stood 
ready to drink death from thine, thy manly 
soul forgot its own distress. To soothe and 
cherish her engross 'd thy thoughts ; the no- 
ble purpose brac'd the man, and gave a He- 
roe's strength. Thy strength it was ; and 
yet deriv'd from want of it in her : such ma- 
gic force hath lovely woman's weakness, 
when in virtue rob'd. } 

Thereafter on the cession of his daily toil, 
when gloomy doubt hung o'er the work, and 
dreary prospects paralized her husband's 
sore-strain'd nerves, the faithful Eve's sweet 
converse, and sincere embrace, new made him 

more than man. Well cheated of his 

cares the Sire of mankind nightly was, in- 
toxicate ; yet not with juice of deleterious 
grape, as since his sons have been ; but 
wholesome drunk with pearly intellectual 
nectar, shot in sun-beams warm from Eve's 
sweet april eye, as deep she drank th' affec- 



Sect 11.3 ON IMMORTALITY. 8J5 

tion of her lord. And now, (all woes well 
drown'd in rich domestic bliss,) the first of 
human boasters, vaunting, thus exclaim'd. 
— — " External ills I mind ye not :— Incle- 
" ment skies, wild beasts, and sterile Earth, 
" and hard earn'd sustenance by matchless 

" labour won, I'm equal to ye all. My 

" soul's new brac'd in Eve's caress, — my ar- 
" mour in my heart ; — and when the morning 
."dawns I'll forth and try your odds : — nor 
" murmur at my lot, so I, each night, find her 

" sweet solace." Morning come, 1 see 

him hieing forth, with giant strength ; yet 
more of soul than nerve. — And when the 
day declines, return'd fatigu'd ; but not cast 
down, — upheld by absent Eve's sweet image 
many a mile. 

This was salvage of fair Eden's wreck, — 
A taste of joys almost celestial,— still with 
human beings sometimes found ; and, after 
Virtues' self, the sweetest counterpoise of 
human w r oes. — But, in the race of birds 'tis 

IVI M 



2C» AN ESSAY [Sect. II. 

happiness of course ; — and not of rare occur- 
rence. 

Feather'd tribes farewell. -Among 

your othcj joys, in this, the greatest, ye ex- 
ceed ; — the bliss of wedded life. 

Turn we now, to tribes by man re- 
claim'd ; — spite of his rule how happily they 

live. The fatt'ning ox fares better, 

—far more happily in his own way, than 
the fat man upon the carcase fed. — The 
brute eats on content ; untax'd by man's re- 
pletion-pains, — or fear of pains, — or care of 
any sort. — The human glutton frequent lives 
a prey to multifarious ills, of flesh's, and of 
reason's growth. 

Of other conquer d tribes the vantage, sure, 
is great. — —Observe the well kept sheep 

and kine : The various social broods 

around the house ; those happy families, all 
made content in sweet domestic life. — The 
petted pris'ner birds, who scorn and pine 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 267 

at liberty, when got. The pamper'd dog 

and cat, — oft idols of the human race. 

All these do surely fare much better, — 
care much less — than a whole people in 

the happiest land. In very ridicule 

we lord it here : for men are but the ser- 
vants of these tribes ; who, happy, never 
know the price we make them pay for this in- 
siduous kindness. 

Here our search might stop. But yet 
ANOTHER WORLD of living nature's 
claims our view, outspread on every land ; 
whose sum of happiness, if here by numbers 
judg'd, must vastly far surpass the whole yet 
narrid. — Already have we seen that all which 
float in yielding elements, and ply their 
nat'ral-gifted indefatigable oars through va- 
rious scenes of easy change, are highly blest 

beyond earth-pacing tribes.- Besides the 

constant pleasure which appears the bus'ness 
of their lives, they're safe from galling chafes,. 

M M 2 



268 AN ESSAY [[Sect. IT* 

from fractures, falls, and painful contacts, 
worse than fatal to their frame ; and quite 
untax'd by various other ills besetting grosser 
kinds. In equal press of aerial fluid, softer 
ten times than the kiss of softest down, they 
float extatic in the genial beam ; and revel 

through the journey of their lives. — No w 

be it mark'd, that MYRIAD LEGIONS 
INFINITE, are bom to this inheritance; 
and nil all Air and Water, — every sea and 
lake, — the fivers and the rills. — The vast 
elastic aerial envelop of Earth itself seems 
but one living sphere of minds, so thickly 
set, that millions, joyous, get a lazy ride 
from every winnowing of a sparrow's wing. 
What mighty sums of happiness are here. 

In bliss, a mind is but a mind: — CON- 

TENT, IS AYE CONTENT. Whe- 
ther by great or little beings found, delight 

is, sure, delight. In midges, and in whales ,* 

— in monkeys, and in men ; when GOD vouch- 
safes to bless them to their full, they're, 



Sect. 11.3 ON IMMORTALITY. S6$ 

equal happy things. Thinks any man 

the sage, sublime, feels more delight when 
feasting on a new found truth; than broad- 
fac'd Folly, when his belly's getting full ? — 
Then why should animalcule be less pleas'd, 
— less proud, — when plying' all the wond'- 
rous tactics of his matchless frame ; than 
gaudy millions of our kind, whose noblest 
flight aspires to show their tinsel to the 
gaze. 

Here let us stop, and sum the count. 

ONE RULE extends o'er nearly all in- 
stinctive Tribes, in every region found. 

Their fears are few, and very short : 

— Pains and diseases fewer still : Their 

wants (with few exceptions) well supplied : 
And, to sum up the marrow of the whole, 
their thoughts of any kind do very rarely 
on the owner prey. Now be it here ob- 
served that Sages well have said, — and none 



MO AN ESSAY ' CSect. II. 

deny, "WHO IS CONTENT IS 

"HAPPY." 

By this certain maxim measur'd it doth 
fairly seem, that happiness and pain, in mei 

and beasts, exist in inverse rates.- Mo 

ments of joy in man, and pain in brutes, are 
doubtless few ; And, while the oft'nest tone 
of human life is discontent; — content's the 
tenor in the life of brutes. 

Tranquil live the beasts, without desert: 
Blest without one thought of the ALMIGH- 
TY GIVER -.—Strangers, entire, to all the 
tissu'd woes begot on Human Memory, by 

Human Thought. But how lives man ?— 

Except he hope in HEAVEN, he's frequent 
steep'd in all the poisons of his reason's 
growth: And though he strive to walk in 
Virtue's ways, and make a down-bed of his 
honest thoughts ; how many a waking hour 
he heaves the sigh, — looks almost envious 
on his vacant dog, — and utters sad this truth, 
—WHO IS CONTENT IS HAPPY. 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 271 

Had we been, like humbler minds, with 
Instinct, not with Reason, gifted, would 
the Sun have shone less cheering on our 
eye ; or cloth'd the verdant Earth with hap- 
pier garb, than now it wears to man. — 

Would the elastic air have fainter rang the 
glad response of animal delight; or In- 
stinct gambol'd less amid its joys, than now 

our Reason doth,- As merely Sensual 

things, could not instinctive man have 
roam'd, or congregated, "like the lively ape, 
who mimics well this possible condition. — — 
With these playful, social, sensual, happy 
mortals he, the human ape, had found all 
grosser pleasures of his present state : with 
liberty, — sweet liberty,— the idol of his ra- 
tional desire, so rarely found in human 
states.— — IF MAN, THEN, DIE LIKE 
THESE, how happy is their apish lot,— 
hoiv high above us must the monkey stand in 
Heaven's regard so choicely favor'd in a 



272 AN ESSAY £Sect. II. 

pleasant life, and in a death which never 
costs a hour's thought. 

But hail we joyfully this contrast here. 
It breathes whole volumes of assurance, in 
the preposterous reverse of all that's probable 

under control of A GOOD GOD. — Can 

any one so impious, or stupid be, as to com- 
pare the minds of beasts with men ;— their 
lives, — their thoughts, — their possible attain- 
ments ; — and then believe that GOD plac'd 
man by far the lower on that scale of merci- 
ful design with which he, doubtless, made 
all living things, — to taste his gifts of bliss ? 

Then, be we here assured ; — for great as 
Reason's office is, it hath no necessary pur- 
pose to inform an earthly mind. In no 

case is it needful but in what bears reference 
to above. All other offices by Instinct 
had as well been fill'd. 

Does now a doubt remain ? Or, in the 
prime conclusions of the mind's tribunal, are 



Sect. 110 ON IMMORTALITY. 273 

the legs more proper made to walk, — 
the hands to feel, — the eyes to see, — than 
HUMAN REASON for a FUTURE 
COUNT? 



THE RECREATION. 

LO, NOT THOU, O MAN, art miserable 

here. That dark imaginary, fabVd, brain- 

bom thing, mere earthly man, 'tis he alone 
(imprison'd in the Sceptic's world) may 
envy brutes. — Thy real great designed hap- 
piness is HOPE, of wholesome Knowledge 
surely born: and HOVE s the Guide to 
HEAVEN.— The happy road before 
thee lies, full strait : and with thy Guide, 
this sweetest, truest friend ; and all the other 
various goods ( or more, or less,) with which 
thou, haply, mays't more cheer the way; 
make up of bliss a sum so vast, as makes 
all countervailing ills but higher relish good. 

N N 



m AN ESSAY [[Sect. II. 

Then praise and reverence be thy glad 

return. Cast forth thy view to NATURE'S 
never ceasing orgies, and be fill'd with 
bliss. 

Immortal Son of Man arise, aud happy, 
happy, deep imbu'd with gratitude for thy 
FAIR HOPE, now gladly join Creation's 
Hymn to GOD OMNIPOTENT— CRE- 
ATOR SELF-EXISTENT. 

See our SUN arise : His beams awake 
the grateful Earth : His far spread living 
rays inform the eye of man that his AL- 
MIGHTY MAKER lives. His blaze 

refulgent signals forth Great Nature's jubi- 
lee, and all created things are summon'd to 
the festival of praise. 

And lo, our DAY, serene ineffably in 
chastest azure rob'd, with majesty advances 
fair. High Almoner is he of GOD's trans- 
cendant gifts : Bearing, heavenly splendid, 
in his bosom calm embrac'd, our glorious 
SUN, he upward grows in sweet cerulean 



mt. 11.1 ON IMMORTALITY. 275 

radiance to meridian heights; from whence he 
showers his GREAT CREATOR'S mercies 
thick upon the craving World. — And mark, 
howat his balmy soft ethereal distant touch ail 
Nature's children wake : Animate and sense- 
less things all move harmonious at his genial 
call. — —The souls of men and beasts ; — the 
mindless herb and grass ; — dead Earth 
itself, — through him alive, prolific made ; 
all thrill and yield appropriate glad responses 
to the life-strings of his golden harp. 

Of things with mind endow'd, now first 
come forth ye little myriads who live unseen 
by human eye ; come every hind, from those 
which wanton float in single sun-beams as a 
free domain, to such as giant-like (corapar'd) 
fill up the eye of wonder-searching micros- 
cope : yourselves hoiv small, how great your 
destiny ; for ye were made to swell the end- 
less choir, ascending from the animalcule to 
the Seraph and the Solar bands. None are 
excluded : praise your happy task; and joy 

N N 2 



276 AN ESSAY [Sect II. 

the only tribute here appointed you to pay, 

tO HIM WHO MADE US ALL. 

Next ye various tribes more tangible to 
human sense, — ye grosser things, by In- 
stinct led, which teach observant man high 
lessons which yourselves know not ; arise and 
put forth all your notes of bliss, in harmony 
with less and greater Powers. — From Mam- 
moth to the Ant, ye all have joys and ways 
of utterance ; nor is your praise confin'd to 
gift of tongues. — Language belongs to every 
thing that FEELS. By ivord : by deed : by 
silent mere content, ye may praise GOD. 

Now Man, strange subject of contending 
Nature's ; Half, by Reason bright illumin'd, 
soaring high ; aod half, the slave of thy 
mysterious bare-condition'd frame; stand 
forth : here lay aside thy grosser self, and 
nobly join a higher strain than ever vibrates 
to an earthly Theme. — GOD is our song, — 
GOD SELF-EXISTENT. Let thy soul 
expand to vast conceptions of sublime ideas : 



Sect. II.;] ON IMMORTALITY. 277 

strive to praise to ^farthest range of human 
thought ; and, in this strife alone presump- 
tuous, emulate the starry giant Beings of 
celestial mould, — those who in corporeal 
purity inhabit Suns. 

But now we rise, — our thoughts ascend ; 
— we mount from pigmy Earth to Realms 
Divine, to Powers more fit and Tongues 
more eloquent ; — collective blaz'ning chorus 
of revolving Worlds. — The HEAVENS 
proclaim the HOLY SONG ; and all the 
choristers of starry space tune their melodi- 
ous orbs, to praise in one grand unison 
their ONLY GOD. 

What tongue of earth may here describe 
the mighty blazon of this choir? — whose 
holy music never sleeps. — — Forget not, 
low adoring man, that to thy sense alone it 
seetn* to pause. While thou, in balmy restor- 
ative trance, art at due seasons lost ; and 
may in many a death lose this high cogni- 
zance of bliss ; the Heavenly chorus never 



278 AN ESSAY £Sect. II. 

dies. — Short-sighted as thou art, its least of 
glories now its greatest seems. When one 
fair Sun beams forth the Hymn t'ward thee, 
no tongue need tell thee that its music 
reigns : But when its dazzling blaze is cur- 
tained by the Earth, thy feeble eye, reliev'd, 
may deep enraptur'd find the glorious Fanes 
of fiery Cherubs, infinite ; whose tongues 
of praise pervade as well all space, as 

WHOLE ETERNITY. 

As countless atoms go to form some 
mighty whole ; so our round huge and pon- 
derous Earth (with endless millions stor'd 
of living things) forms but one willing point, 
— one element of grateful pulse, — one prais- 
ing atom sole minute, — to vibrate in the 
boundless burst of MIGHTY, MIGHTY 
HALLELUJAS. 

In the far concave of unbounded space 
each solar Orb (itself surpassing vast) is 
but a golden harp of Heaven ; breathing 
doubly, living music and eternal praise.- 



Sect. .110 ON IMMORTALITY. 270 

Each Sun wafts forth, to favor'd creature's 
sense, the triple sounding blest harmonious 
notes of life, of light, of happiness, through 
the vast range of its own spheric choir ; and 
all things quicken'd by its tones are privi- 
lege to join their echoing notes, in gratitude : 
differing, indeed, in absolute degrees; but 
all made equal worth, by distance infinite 
from HIS ALL-PERFECT ATTRI- 
BUTES whose praise they sing. 

Lo, all Creation pois'd. — The mighty 
Hymn begins. — Nature's grand chorus now 
resounds,— All beings now join praise. — 
Millions of myriads of Planet-ruling Suns 
'now strike at once, a universal chord to their 

ALMIGHTY GOD. -The peal ineffable, 

reiterated far, ten thousand thousand fold, 
speeds on through Space and Time, and all 
things made therein. On mighty wings of 
Cherub Thought (swift Sire of less swift 
Light) the endless Halleluja flies in burst- 
ing acclamations; through successive spheres 



880 AN ESSAY [[Sect. II. 

of peopl'd Worlds, to beings (doubtless) 
who beyond all ken of human thought join 
the extatic theme, with added deep Hosan- 
nas to ALMIGHTY GOD. 

But pause ; — adoring, silent, listen here,— 
presumptuous Wing of feeble human flight : 
For what avails thy vain attempt to trace the 
boundless range, or show the fashion, of this 
offering to the GREAT FIRST CAUSE.— 
No earth-born thought can ever soar so high : 
No worldly thing affords fit simile to help 
our weak conception to so vast a flight. — 
If we would figure aught sublime of sublu- 
nary grandeur for this end, 'twould sink, in- 
effably, to puerile meanness in our sight : 
itself however grand. The dauntless 

mariner, who from the giddy ship beholds 
the southern mountain-billows grow, as on- 
ward they unfurl their rolling heights, a 
seeming mile between ; — Or he whose ventu- 
rous footstep measures the full altitude of 
that vast nether Heaven, the prodigious 



Sect. 110 ON IMMORTALITY. 281 

Andes, and in livening fancy sees the mighty 
elevation roll, a moving realm ; — such man, 
of life and thought presumptuous, who else 
hath oft, with calm and curious eye, mark'd 
the quick shooting of electric fate, as vi- 
sibly it flew through Heaven, destroying man 
and beast, and towering tree, and high rear'd 
earthly pile, such favor'd souls may well in- 
deed think grand those partial views of 
power infinite. But let them not, in infant 
sport, compare those earthly baby-toys 
to the celestial waft of HEAVENLY 
PRAISE ; — those living waves, alone fit 
measures of Creation's thanks, which on- 
ward fly from worlds to worlds, and never 

find a terminating shore, All likening here 

is futile, vain ; — arid unless chasten d must be 

impious. Earthly Creature know thyself ; 

and in mute extacy adore that view thou art 
not fit to scan. —For thee (much favor'd to 
discern e'en what thou know'st) if yet am- 
bition spur, fall prostrate low before thy 
o o 



SB'S "AN ESSAY [[Sect. IL 

GOD : Beseech him to empower that thou 
break through thy prison-house of earth, 
and burst forth far beyond the present range 
of human thought ; to contemplate that 
boundless field of glorious things, which to 
thy feeble sight already hath vouchsafd so 

high a foretaste. Humbly supplicate (if 

humbly may such Heavenly boon be sought) 
for that estate wherein sweet Sound shall be 
thy grossest Sense,— GO D's daily praise 
thy soul's insatialing food, — and the far 
World of never tiring Vision shall be given 
to play continual on thy glance, in all the 
endless changes of sublime and beautiful. 
— But now, until thy prayer be heard, bow 
low for what thou dost behold, and for that 
PRECIOUS HOPE vouchsafd thee, thus, 
by ALL THIS MIGHTY BLAZON OF 
DIVINE ARRANGEMENTS. Ever feel 
thou hast 7io tongue, — no thought, — no pos- 
sible conception, wherewithal to offer up fit 
praise for HOPE thus given.— The vast be- 



Sect. 11.2 ON IMMORTALITY. 283 

nevolence of HIM who gives it, stands to 
thee for merit: In his mercy only thy 
HOPE lives. — Nought but a humble gra- 
titude is thine, — in value nothing save in 
Mercy's eye ; but in this heavenly coin (O 
ever welcome thought) the beggar may be 
rich. — Maugre fortune,— Maugre frail- 
ty, — this pure tribute THOU CANS'T 
PAY ; and, if GOD look approving on the 
deed, how enviably rich thy portion with the 
blest!!! 



END OF THE &ECONB PART, 



0 0% 



( 28.5 ) 



PART THIRD. 



SECTION FIRST. 

OF A DUE ESTIMATE OF THE HAPPINESS, OR 
MISERY, OF CIVILISED MAN. 

The serious reader, who deeply feels the 
important stake he has in the present sub- 
ject; and therefore desires to investigate it 
farther, for his own satisfaction ; will con- 
sider, that the sketch contain'd in the Second 
Part of this Essay, does not follow human 
evil into all, nor yet into all the broadest, of its 
departments. — Neither, on the other hand, 
does it exhibit more of brute happiness than a 



286 AN ESSAY £Sect. I. 

very few instances, which must here serve to 
represent all the vast amount of animal enjoy- 
ment ivhich enlivens the Earth. 1 therefore 

certainly do not intend the view in question 
as the measure of either general fact; but 
only as a body of evidence which (though 
very deficient) may fully serve to form that 
broad and philosophical ground of moral 
hope, which has hitherto been a desideratum 
against Scepticism, and Atheism, and all 
their attendant evils. 

In the earlier part of the Essay I have 
endeavoured at some length, to point out the 
erroneous influence of the imagination 
upon our views of animal life. But, in order 
to form a just estimate of our subject, it is 
no less necessary that we guard against this 
same deceiver, the imagination, in our views 
of human life itself— — Except it be by rare 
accident, no man will attempt such a sub- 
ject as the present, but whose early and long 
established habits, and associated ideas, are 



Sect. 1.1 ON IMMORTALITY. 287 

those of a highly civilised community. But 
the most familiar images of life in the mind 
of such a man, are far above the average of 
mere human happiness : and, though he may 
easily observe quite enough to make him con- 
fess (as so many of the best and most learned 
men have done) that human life is full of 
misery, yet, the conveniencies, the comforts, 
and the decorums of life with which he is 
surrounded ; — the moral disposition of his i 
own mind, and of the minds of his associ- 
ates ; — the vastly encouraging hope in Reve- 
lation ; — and perhaps various other consider- 
ations, are continually intruding upon, occu- 
pying, and vitiating his imagination, so far 
as regards a true estimate of human happi- 
ness, or misery, as it exists generally 
throughout the Earth ; Or, as it would exist 
in civilised life itself, had Religion never 
existed. 

To form a true estimate of this subject, it 
is of the utmost importance that we do not 
overlook, that the men whose happiness we 



268 AN ESSAY [[Sect. L 

are to weigh, must be men icithout hope in 

futurity. If, for instance, we choose to 

take an English Peasant as the representa- 
tive of the Species, we must first divest him 
of all religious belief : so that whenever, 
from labour, vexation, poverty, disease, age, or 
aught else, he may be urged to complain ; 
he must have no refuge, no solace in the 
hope that GOD will hereafter consider 

him as a suffering virtuous man. We are 

here strictly (if possible) to measure the hap- 
piness of man consider d as a being who 
perishes utterly at death ; and he must have 
nothing to do with hope until after the ques- 
tion of his earthly happiness is decided. 

But when we would seek out a whole 
people to answer this last description, there 
is no Nation in Europe which can serve our 
purpose : On the contrary, in every Christian 
state the condition of the million is greatly 
ameliorated by a very powerful twofold 
cause. First, by moral ties, arising from re- 
ligious hopes and fears ; which (though too 



Sect. IJ ON IMMORTALITY. 283 

often ineffectual) do certainly operate very 
widely to prevent the commission of crimes 
and to farther the operations of sympathy. 
And, Secondly, by Religious Faith, which 
always proves so sweet a balm to men, 

under troubles when they do come.— 

When we for a moment reflect on these two 
causes, it will become manifest, that all 
Nations influenced by them are actually 
vastly happier than they ought to be, to serve 
as a fair representation of our Species, in a 
general comparison of the two ORDERS of 

minds. —Farther, although this must be 

so manifest to our reason; yet, as we always 
view the bulk of society in a greater or less 
degree defended by moral ties, and sup- 
ported, when down, by the consolations of 
Religion, the imagination cannot readily 
picture the evils, and despondency, which 
would prevail among such a people as the 
comparison strictly demands. 

If these considerations be attended to, 
p p 



290 AN ESSAY [Sect, t 

without looking 1 farther, I believe it will be 
granted, that any man (whatever be his ta- 
lents and learning) who shall sit down to 
the subject in the midst of a people amelio- 
rated and defended by religious persuasion, 
will find it a matter of great effort to hold 
himself divested of the intrusive pictures of 
his imagination : And I humbly conceive, 
it is neither in the moral and tranquil re- 
treats of learning ; nor in the bustle of a 
prosperous commercial country; nor even 
among the much favored peasantry of such a 
country as England, that a man can, with- 
out much effort, receive a true natural im- 
pression of the mean of human happiness. — 
The poverty of Scotland, and the miseries 
of the other Sister Country, I apprehend, 
afford pictures much nearer the average. 

But suppose we do take an English Pea- 
sant, if not as the true, yet as the momentary 
representative of the species; we must nei- 
ther take the Peasant of a Pastoral, nor of a 



Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY . 2gl 

rural ballad : but must follow the real cha- 
racter, through all the misery, — the sordid 
drudgery, — the pinching cold, — the searching 
heat, — the toil and weariness; — the vexation 
with his cattle and his master, — and, in short, 

all his plagues and cares. To be liberal 

here, we will not include sickness, or hurts ; 
poverty, or age ; but only tax upon him the 
forethought that thus he must drudge on, 
as long as he lives, without any sober hope of 
bettering his lot. 

Let us now, on the other hand, view the 
fair side of his condition.— — -It has been 
said that the husbandman has a more en- 
larged mind, than the sedentary mechanic, 
or manufacturer. But it may not follow 
that this enlargement (as such) adds to his 
happiness. Nay it may awaken reflections 
which, chained as he is to his destiny, may 
tend to make him more miserable. — He has, 
however, the great blessing of rude animal 

health, and its concomitant, cheerfulness; and 
p p 2 



292 AN ESSAY [[Sect. X, 

upon a morning view of Nature, with the 
glorious rise of a summers Sun, he may per- 
haps be supposed to join his rude carrol 
upon an equal footing of happiness with the 
lark above his head ; though this may he 
allowing vastly more than the truth. — Per- 
haps also, during his morning solace, he may 
dream of some other joys within the probable 
compass of his lot : and this, I think, may be 
the summit or extent, of what we may call 
his enjoyment. 

There are yet two other kinds of pleasure 
which the Peasant is said to enjoy, in a de- 
gree which kings themselves might envy. 
These are eating and sleeping. — Now, as to 
the first, I am ready to~confess, that a good 
appetite with plenty of wholesome coarse fare, 
is a very solid enjoyment, provided the food 
have a good natural relish. But I would 
ask here, if the Peasant tastes more pleasure 
while bolting his bacon, than his horse does 
while chewing his beans. Their respective 



Sect 10 ON IMMORTALITY. 2M 

feasts are, I believe, nearly equally short; 
and I dare say, equally sweet ; even taking 
in all the thoughts of each party during the 
repast. 

Let us, then, proceed to consider the lux- 
ury of sleep, — The sleep of a labouring man 
may be accounted sweet ; since, like the dead, 
" he rests from his labour." — But what is the 
fact in this case ? In plain language it seems 
to be this, that he is so continually a drudge, 
that oblivion serves him instead of positive 
enjoyment.— No man will attempt to say 
that the stone-like sleep of a ploughman con-* 
tains any conscious enjoyment. He neither 
dreams, nor dozes, but is as senseless as 
death in one minute after lying down. — The 
only change produced in him by sleep is, 

that Nature is insensibly restored. 1 

pretty well know what a gratification it is 
to be permitted to sink from toil and watch- 
ing into oblivion ; and can well appreciate 
this luxury pf the Peasant, which indeed 



294 AN ESSAY [[Sect. I. 

may be called a Heaven compared with the 
restlessness, or sickly dreams, of many thou- 
sands in higher life. But viewing the fact 
strictly, as we must here do, it is simply 
evident, that all the enjoyment which any 
man has in sound sleep, is the anticipation 

of the moment when it shall begin. All 

beyond that moment is but temporary death. 

Having offered these mere hints toward a 
true estimate of the happiness of the English 
Peasant, I leave the reader to follow them 
up, and draw his own conclusion upon the 
whole : Only observing, that however unin- 
viting this Peasant's condition may appear ; 
I deem him, under his happy law r s, his pure 
religion, and comparatively happy moral 
bonds, to be actually happier than the mil- 
lion over all the rest of Europe ; and cer^ 
tainly happier than mere human Nature 
would ever permit the million to be, in any 

CIVILISED COUNTRY WITHOUT RELIGION. 

Monsieur Helvetius says, that if men la- 



Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 295 

bour but six, or seven hours in the day; 
and have food, and the society of their 
wives ; they are nearly as happy as they 
can be. This remark, when applied only to 
men in reclaimed societies, may be nearly just; 
and it amounts to this, that in civilised life 
the difference of ranks, does not necessarily 

produce much difference in happiness. 

But this maxim will not hold true if we ap- 
ply it to man at large, including natural man ; 
— for a very important consideration, in this 
larger view, is, as to the nature of the em- 
ployment. — I do not consider the Ploughman 
miserable on account of the degree, nor even 
of the sordidness, of his business ; but only 
on account of its kind, inasmuch as it is to- 
tally void not only of what is usually called 
pleasure, but also of ENTERPRISE which 
can, of itself, convert pain into pleasure.—— 
Instead of being chained to his team ; and 
thus tantalised by beholding the various 
beauties of Nature, among which, however, 



296 AN ESSAY QSect. I. 

he may not range; instead of this, if the 
Ploughman were a Hunter in the most de- 
sart wilds, and often little better than half 
fed by his success ; his labour would seem 
but sport, and his life would be far happier, 
—far nobler, — than that of a drudge at a 
plough, era cart tail. 

As these remarks are intended but as 
mere hints to caution the inquirer against 
forming a hasty estimate ; let me but add, 
that 1 do not imagine any more equality of 
happiness between the English Ploughman, 
(who is here supposed to represent the mass 
of civilised man,) and the Savage of the Isles 
in the Pacific Ocean ; than there is equality 
of cheerfulness between noon-day and twi-light. 
And 1 have already argued, that owing to 
the operation of Reason, in producing wars, 
violence, and other evils; the happiest Sa- 
vages are not absolutely so happy as a 
commonwealth of Apes, or Elephants. 

Facts are confessedly stubborn things, 



Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 297 

and it is a fact which it would be vain to 
deny, that imperfection of mind very 
commonly produces earthly happiness ; 
while knowledge, or wit, as commonly 
brings misery ; both in the brute, and in the 
human Order. Not only is the Hog much 
less liable to alarm or care, than the saga- 
cious Elephant : but, in the human species 
we know, that persons of the least mind,ms?«- 
ally pass through life ivith far more cheerful- 
ness, or content, than those of acute minds, 

Nay, it is highly worthy remark, that 

the Negro (who, as a great variety of the 
human species, approaches the brute, both in 
body and mind, more nearly than any other 
of the five varieties) is constitutionally and 
habitually the cheerfullest of men. — Those 
who have seen him, after labouring twelve or 
fifteen hours in the day solace himself, by 
dancing several hours longer, to the sound of 
an empty cask, and that with an exertion of 
muscle admirably Herculean —spite of sla- 

QQ 



2dS 'AN ESSAY [Sect. I. 

very, — spite of fate ; — those who have marked 
his lively laughing countenance, and his ha- 
bitual good humour, void of forecast ; — will 
never compare him with the calculating 
moody enlightened European ; and then say, 
that the perfection of our Nature, as 

earthly beings, leads to happiness. 

If after the evidences which have already 
appeared of the happiness of Savages, in 
very different Nations, any thing could add 
strength to our conviction ; it is to observe, 
that a great people, who occupy near a quar- 
ter of the Globe, and whose characteristic 
formation of Cranium denies that form of 
Brain which is required as the instrument of 
profound intellect; this people, above every 
great people, displays the greatest share of 
constitutional happiness. 

The fact which I am here illustrating, is 
so broad a one, in both ORDERS of 
minds, that perhaps the whole aspect of 
things cannot furnish a more certain conclu- 



Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 299 

sion, than that man ivitliout religion, was not 
destined to find earthly happiness by means 
of the perfection of his nature. 

Although it has been repeatedly asserted 
in the course of the inquiry, yet, as our eye 
is continually occupied with the picture of 
society around us, I deem it not unnecessary 
to remind the reader once more, that we are 
not to overlook, in the comparison of the 
TWO ORDERS of minds, that the truly 
religious part of mankind are not included. — 
It is all along supposed that the man who 
trusts in GOD, and hopes in futurity, is 
assuredly the happiest of all earthly beings : 
and I here declare my conviction that he 
must be so, even though his worldly lot were 
in other respects truly hard. And, taking 
the ordinary run of life, the Christian, ad- 
ding his future hopes to all the other goods 
of an enlightened community, is, doubtless, 
a very enviable being, even upon earth. 

The Christian World, then, as it stands, 
qq2 



SOO AN ESSAY QSect. J. 

is, in point of fact, admitted, to be far happier 
than the brute World ; and surely, since 
this is so, we need feel neither jealousy, nor 
mortification, to have it put highly in evi- 
dence, drawn from so many quarters, that 
the instinctive Order is happier, than 
those Men who have no seme of a GOD as 

their present and their future hope. Nay, 

on the contrary, we must be encouraged, 
and raised ineffably, to observe here, 
that Man surely becomes happier than 
brutes, by the contemplation of Heaven, — 

AND ONLY BY THE CONTEMPLATION OF 

Heaven, including all the amelioration of 
his pursuits, his manners, and his thoughts, 
owing to that contemplation. 

This high point being securely admitted, 
the following positions may be claimed with 
the utmost confidence, as being proved to a 
far greater extent than we have any need*to 
embrace. 

First. — That the happiness of Man (if we 



Sect 1.2 ON IMMORTALITY. 301 

totally exclude the operation of religion) is 
found by experience not to flow naturally, 
(or unless by some mere accident) in the 
direction of his intellectual 'perfection ; since 
Savages, in almost all countries, are actually 
found to be happier, than those parts of 
civilised society who are but little influenced 
by religious hope and fear; and since, also, 
even in civilised life, it is an undeniable 
every day truth, that those who are called 
dull easy minds, (who know little, and think 
less,) usually pass through life far more hap- 
pily, than persons of an improved, or an ac- 
tive intellect. — Such persons, (it is vain to 
deny) live longer, — laugh oftener, — enjoy 
better health, — and oftener profess themselves 
happy, than men of the most noble and re- 
fined minds.— No fact, then, is more 

certain, and few are more broad, than that 
the scale of happiness ( except by aid of reli- 
gion) does not run with the scale of perfec- 
tion : and this fact, as I have already ob- 



LSect. t. AN ESSAY 302 

served, holds even in the brute, as well as 
in the human order. 

Secondly. — That in point of fact, civil- 
ised Man (if we totally exclude the opera- 
tion of religion) is not, by a vast distance, ac- 
tually in a state of happiness proportion- 
ate to his intellectual endowments, — when 
compared with the happiness and endow- 
ments of the brute order. 

The reader will observe, that this last is a 
very retired position : because the thing that 
has been had in evidence all along is, that 
Man (wanting religion) does not possess an 
absolute equality of happiness with many 
tribes of brutes. But an absolute equality 
of happiness, (eveu if he could claim it) is 
yet far short of a proportionate equality, 
considering the vast superiority of man's 
intellectual endowments. 

Whoever investigates the bearings and 
magnitudes of all the foregoing* considera- 
tions, will perceive, that we have, indeed, 



Sect. I.] ON IMMORTALITY. 30B, 

after the most sober calculation, abundant 
ground to spare, over and above what is 
required for a truly philosophical ground 
of moral argument, arising from a compa- 
rison of the TWO orders. 



304 



AN ESSAY 



Oct. II. 



SECTION SECOND. 

OF THE PROXIMATE DESIGN OF CREATING 
MAN, AS AN ORDER CONTRADISTINGUISHED 
FROM BRUTES. 

AlS a separate collateral indication of a 
future state, cannot in any case be unaccept- 
able, I will here present a speculation, li- 
mited to the Human Species itself; which 
I trust may come in with the more effect, 
after all that has been advanced in the way 
of evidence. It is an argument somewhat 
different in its nature from the principal 
one, to prove that the grand characteristic 



Sect. 110 ON IMMORTALITY. 305 

of Man, as contradistinguished from the 
brute order, is very certainly designed to force 
him above the ignoble happiness of brutes ; 
which ignoble happiness, it has clearly ap- 
peared, he does enjoy to a very considerable 
extent, so long as he remains in the lowest 
state of his intellect. And that this^ 
his characteristic endowment, does by its 
proper essential operation lead him to dis- 
cover, and to endeavour to deserve, a higher 
happiness in a future state. 

Or, 1 may state the position thus. — It ap- 
pears designed that Man, by advancing from 
the lower to the higher state of his intellect, 
should not encrease, but rather diminish, his 
happiness ; EXCEPT in that advance he 
discover indications of an hereafter, and 
counteract the certain encr eased desires, vices, 
and cares of civilisation, by the various 
goods arising from that happy discovery : — 
BUT, at the same time, it also appears, 
both from History and the present state of 



AN ESSAY QSeet U. 

the World, that the usual result of the ad- 
vancement of any Nation to greatness, is at 
least some indication of an hereafter the 
exceptions to which result are but particular 

instances.— Therefore, it ivas designed 

(and is carried into effect by the course of 
Nature itself) that Man should find a 
proportionate happiness on earth, by the 
contemplation of a future state ; and 
ONLY by the contemplation of a future 
state. 

To establish this position, the reader 
might perhaps gather full sufficient matter 
from the evidence already had : But, if not, 
1 shall begin by assuming, that the proxi- 
mate design of any thing in Nature, is to be 
gathered from its known chief properties, or 

effects. Beasts, in general, were made to 

walk; — Birds to fly; — and Fish to swim. — 
For whatever ends these different classes of 
animals were created ; walking; flying, and 
swimming, are respectively the proximate de~ 



Sect. II.] ON IMMORTALITY. 307 

signs of their being made ivhat they are : and 
whatever results of happiness, or of misery, 
accrue from these several modes of existence, 
are surely designed results of those dis- 
tinctions. 

In like manner (though, if possible, with 
greater certainty) we are convinced that the 
proximate design of creating Man was, that 
he should exist by the exercise of Reason. 

Knowledge, actually gained and exercised, 

forms the essential distinction of Man from 
the brute Order : for, as to man's actions, 
these are nothing but the mere mechanical 

effects of his knowledge. It is equally 

certain that knowledge is more necessary to 
man, than flying to birds, or swimming to 
fish : because man (having no guiding in- 
stinct) would certainly and speedily perish, 
if totally spoiled of his reason. — But the 
extent of this truth is not necessary to our 

position, since it is otherwise so very obvi 
r r 2 



308 AN ESSAY [[Sect. II. 

oils, that it is by the exercise of reason that 
Man is to fulfil his eaithly destiny. 

But farther, it holds, generally, in the dif- 
ferent species of living Nature, both in the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms, that they are 
all subject to greater or less advancement 
toward perfection, according as accidental 
circumstances operate ; and we always deem 
those, of each species, the most perfect to 
the design of creation, where we find 
their characteristic properties completely 
developed, or exercised, Agreeably there- 
fore to ali the other analogies of Nature, we 
are to consider Man as most perfect to the 
proximate design of creating him, where he 
has (in mass) attained the greatest advance 
in general knowledge, which may for our 
present purpose be called synonymous with 

CIVILISATION. 

Now, as the World is known to have been 
peopled for at least six, or seven thousand 



Sect. 11.2 ON IMMORTALITY. 309 

years ; and as it is more than half that time 
since the Earth was recast, for the express 
purpose of reforming intellectual Man ; 
it would be neither philosophical, nor reli- 
gious, to suppose that he has never yet an- 
swered the proximate design of his CREA- 
TOR. I must therefore suppose that he 
has, in several instances, attained as much of 
civilisation and attendant happiness, as he 
can do without the aid of Religion. And 
wherever this extent of knowledge has been 
attained, if we can ascertain the happiness 
jt produced;— cleared of the influence of ac- 
cidental causes, and totally void of the be- 
nefits of a belief in GOD, or a future state; 
we shall, I think, assuredly find that degree 
of happiness, which could have been de- 
signed for Man, if, for the argument's sake, 
we treat him, here, as designed for this life 
only. 

Such a condition, of any great People, as 
that required, 1 have already observed, does 



310 AN ESSAY pfc»fc li, 

not precisely exist in Europe, or indeed iu 
the World : and perhaps any such never did 
exist. But, making due allowances, His- 
tory certainly furnishes us with some guides 
which will, at least, leave us in no error of 
conclusion. 

Both the Greeks, and Romans, in their 
proudest days of civilisation and luxury, 
were, comparatively speaking, but little in- 
fluenced in their private characters aud hap* 
piness, by the hopes of a future state s But 
doubtless they were influenced in some de- 
gree; and were thus happier than any Na- 
tion ought to be, to serve for our investiga* 
tion.—I am, however, content they stand 
for it; and shall securely leave it to the 
reader, whether the happiness of either of 
these People, flowed on, and kept pace with 9 

THEIR CIVILISATION. 

It is not my intention to investigate this 
matter at much length, here, since two or 
three prominent instances may probably suf- 



Sect. ON IMMORTALITY. 311 

fice. And fortunately, besides the Nations 
already named, there is yet another, which 
perhaps affords us a fairer subject than any 
upon record. — —The Jews, especially under 
their celebrated King, Solomon, were a 
flourishing Nation, — in a happy region of 
the Earth, — and with about as much know- 
ledge and affluence, as seem in our own day 
to yield the most of happiness in civilised 
life. — Moreover, it is peculiar, they thought 
themselves designed by GOD for earthly 
happiness, and for no state beyond earthly 

happiness. -As a single Nation, and a 

small one too, they were very liable to par- 
tial causes : and, as a fear of GOD had much 
influence over their moral conduct, and 
earthly hopes, they were, by so much, happier 
than they ought to have been for our present 
purpose. — But still they furnish a valuable 
guide, which will lead ns near the truth: 
and, luckily, we have a very beautiful, 
and doubtless a very true Chart of the 



312 AN ESSAY [[Sect. II. 

Jewish happiness of that day, drawn by the 
hand of this very King Solomon, or by the 
wisest of those about him. Let us there- 
fore examine this chart, and observe how 
much of smooth sea; and how much of 
rocks, shoals, whirlpools, and quicksands, 
it contains. 

The Book of Ecclesiastes is assuredly 
one of the wisest of Books. — It is a chart of 
Human vanity ; to measure which, every 
wise man will find a scale and compasses in 
his own bosom ; and he will farther find the 
Jewish delineation most sadly true; that is 
to say, if he put futurity totally out of the 
question, as the Jew who wrote that book 
certainly did. 

Let us here but mark, what is the esti- 
mate of life made by the most fortunate of 
men ; — a man who enjoyed all the advan- 
tages of a patriarchal king, without the 
countervailing trammels, and cares, of mo- 
dern kingship : — who certainly may be 



Sect. 11.3 ON IMMORTALITY. 313 

judged happier than the bulk of his people ; 
— and who, by his own confession, so admi- 
rably put in practice the inductive method, 
by experimenting all the possible varieties of 

Human happiness. What then was the 

result, according to him ? Why this, 

That the first and greatest of all wisdom 
is to seek GOD. — But, after that, the great- 
est of earthly wisdom is to EAT, DRINK, 
and be MERRY ; — for which this plain 
reason is assigned, that whether, or not, 

" ALL IS VANITY AND VEXATION OF SPIRIT." 

— — -With the exception of feasting and 
merriment, he was decided, that death is 
better than life; and all other human em- 
ployments but a foolish abuse of time. 

These prime precepts to eat and drink 
and be merry, have certainly come down 
to us embalmed in masses of the soundesi wis- 
dom; and, therefore, we may be assured 
that in the eye of any mere earthly man, they 
are themselves the height of wisdom. 



SU AN ESSAY CSect. II. 

This substantial HAPPINESS, so cried 
up, and so repeatedly enjoined, in the book 
of Ecclesiastes, (I desire the reader to 
mark,) is so truly of the same kind with 

the INSTINCTIVE ENJOYMENTS of BRUTES, 

that the wisdom of Solomon (or of the Jews 
of his day) is, in its whole tenor and extent, 
a most high authority for the comparative 
happiness of brutes; which fact I have all 
along maintained. And certainly, no one 
need attempt to deny this fact, unless he 
shall first demolish, or turn to folly, the 
Jewish wisdom $ as well as that of those 
learned and dignified Christians which have 
pronounced on the same side. 

But my more direct object here is only to 
show, that mere earthly knowledge does not 
advance man's happiness, after the expan- 
sion of his intellect has once forced him above 
the unreflecting animal happiness of a Savage. 
—And First,— that the Jew, in all his 
wisdom and glory, was (by his own confes- 



Sect. lir\ ON IMMORTALITY. 315 

sion) not so happy as the poor ignorant 
Kam tschadale is, by his own confession: 

the reason of which appears to be, that 

the Kamtschadale (in the true wisdom of 
Solomon) thinks as little; — and eats, and 
drinks, and is glad, as much; — as he can. — 
And next, — that neither the ancient Greeks, 
nor Romans, during their most exalted and 
luxurious days, were so happy as the present 
Savages of the Islands in the Pacific 
Ocean. 

A short and decisive illustration of this 
last truth, may be given in a very few 
words. — — Modern Englishmen are filled 
with disgust and horror at a picture of the 
manners of those ancient Nations ; their ty- 
ranny, bloodshed, proscriptions, multifarious 
wrongs and barbarities, and even the hard* 

heartedness of their social manners: 

And yet, these very same modern English- 
men (fresh from the most humane country 

upon earth) were charmed with the amiable 
ss2 



S«ct. IT.]] AN ESSAY 316 

manners, — the affection, freedom, and happi- 
ness, which they actually found, locked up 
with ignorance, in the Oriental Islands. 

To offer any illustration after this, would 
indeed be a waste of words; and he who 
cannot now see the fact would hardly be 
enlightened by any other evidence. I there- 
fore esteem it as amounting to a Law of 
Nature (that is to a general fact, proved by 
various trials made upon Nations in the 
course of time) that MAN by means of the 
perfection of his Nature arrives at greater 
happiness than any other earthly being; 
because, it is the natural or usual result of 
that perfection, to be attended by the disco- 
very and contemplation of a future state. — 
But that, if by any accident (such as the rise 
of a false philosophy) any great People 
have their hope in a future state prevented, 
— or destroyed, — that People will be 
found uncharitable in their nature, — dissolute 
in their morals,— and desperate in their dis- 
tresses. 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 317 

Let us here state the matter in the briefest 
terms. 

As Man advances from ignorance to 
knowledge, if he take in the contemplation 
of an hereafter, he becomes the better and 
happier being. 

As Man advances from ignorance to 
knowledge, if he do not take in the contem- 
plation of an hereafter, he grows less happy 
'than he was in his savage state. 

We sufficiently know the history of a full 
set of each experiment. — The ancient Jews, 
Greeks, and Romans, furnish (though not 
purely) the result of civilisation ivithout 
hope in futurity. And Christian Europe 
now displays the happy result of civilisation 
with hope. \ 

Now if the reader but consider the moral 
turpitude of those three ancient Nations by 
the time that Christianity began to operate ; 
And, against this, place the comparatively 
moral conduct, and charitable general dis- 



318 AN ESSAY . [[Sect. U. 

position, which now adorn Christian Eu- 
rope, crowned by the existing conventions 
of discordant Sects and Nations to abolish 
slavery ; — the lustre of this comparison alone 
must flash upon hini a vast conviction. 

What, then, are these two sets of experi- 
ments upon the progressive happiness of 
Nations, but a complete demonstration, 
that a trust in immortality is the balm, 
and the ONLY BALM, afforded by Na- 
ture, to render man happy proportion- 
ately with the natural growth and perfection 
of his intellect? — — And how efficient must 
this cause be in its own Nature, when it 
already produces such good effects; not- 
withstanding it is certainly counteracted by 
an augmenting resistance of luxury and 
vanity,--— by the leaven of Scepticism— and of 
ArHEisM,— and by all the evils of false philo- 
sophy. 

The Atheist has here, in one general Fact, 
both a distinct proof of a GOD, and an in* 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 310 

dication of his own future existence. It is 

vain that he may attempt to say, that the 
Notion of a GOD, which Notion produces 
all this happiness, may be invented by man, 
and kept alive, by tradition, through all 
Nations. The Atheist, in his pretensions 
as a philosopher, must look for man's de- 
signed state where his potvers are fully de- 
veloped : and when he finds that it is a law 
of Nature, that the development of his 
powers, by naturally encreasing the num- 
ber of his desires and cares, makes him more 
vicious, and more miserable, UNLESS he 
qualify these with the supposition of a fu- 
ture state ;-~-what will he say to such a 
general result thus naturally produced ? — — 
Suppose the Notion of futurity but an Hy- 
pothesis, and never before thought of must 
not the Atheist (as a philosopher) "admit 
any supposition that is systematically 
indicated by Nature herself; — which 
makes men happy, and without which 



320 AN ESSAY [>ct. it 

they groiv miserable, as naturally as the trees 
grow upward. 

Here be it observed, I neither overlook, 
nor wish to undervalue, the various evils 
which have, in time past, flowed from the 
abuses and errors of religion. — These 
however, at the worst, are rather to be laid 

at the door of reason, than of religion: * 

And what is more, the flatter is a good of so 
peculiar a Nature, that under its public evils 
it always affords an equivalent in hope. 
This is demonstrable ; for otherwise, the per- 
secuted man would become a convert, and 
so suffer no longer: Nay he would often 

mend his worldly affairs by the change. » 

As to the adoption of false religions, and 
then, upon principle, persecuting those who 
differ in opinion ; what does this amount to, 
but to show, that so long as men embrace 
any religion that does not accord ivith the 
Law of Nature (that is, which does not 
inculcate zpure universal morality) they 



Sect. II/] ON IMMORTALITY. 221 

produce more evil, and less good, than would 
arise from a rational faith ? 

But what is far more important here, is, 
that those sad clouds of superstitious ty- 
ranny are very generally blown over; and Re- 
ligion is certainly now rapidly spreading hap- 
piness over the world. — -The humane temper 
of the times, and more particularly evinced by 
that feature which 1 have already mentioned, 
of the exertions and conventions of different 
Sects to annihilate the very name of slavery 
shows that Religion is operating with a true 
heavenly spirit, and vast extending arms, to 
render man happier than he ever was : 
though it is still true, (such in the eye of 
short-sighted man, is the force of a present 
interest, opposed only by a future one,) that 
some public wrong exists in the best com- 
munities ; and even the cloak, and cant, of 
Religion is often assumed as the guise of 
abominable private iniquity. 

My position does not assert that no er- 

T T 



322 AN ESSAY CSect.IL 

rors, or evils, can come with religion : but 
only that, during progressive civilisation, no 
steady augmentation of good can come with- 
out it. And, I trust it is put beyond all 
question that, notwithstanding any partial 
evils, or errors, in religion, yet the contem- 
plation of a future state is the only medium 
by which man can here attain proportionate 
happiness. 

I beg leave to remind the reader that this 
is a physical argument, and quite a differ- 
ent thing from the moral one. — It has no 
dependence upon whether man is happier 
than brutes ^ Or, whether one man is hap- 
pier than another; Nor, upon any supposi- 
tion of the design of GOD for man, as a 
higher, or lower being, than any other in 

Creation.— Differently from all these, it 

is here stated as a Natural Law, that 
Man becomes happy as an earthly be- 
ing, only by supposing an hereafter; just 
as it is a Natural law, that trees grow 
only by aid of moisture ; — or, that men 



Sect. XL]] ON IMMORTALITY. 323 

can become strong only by taking Jit suste- 
nance. 

1 am not aware that any one has run the 
same comparison, in order to point out this 
indication of a future state from the natural 
progress of the Human Mind; and there is 
good reason why it may have escaped no- 
tice. — -It is very universally agreed, that 
civilisation encreases the happiness of 
man : and in the eyes of every one, the fact 
is so in Christian Europe. But perhaps 
few men have thought of analysing this 
happiness, and putting on one side all the 
good that belongs to the direct, and indi- 
rect, operation and influence of religion. — 
When this shall be done, we shall find what 
extent of happiness would exist without it ; 
but as the various operations, and influences, 
of religion form a very compound subject, 
I must be content here to leave the result to 
a guess : quite assured, however, that the 

inquirer cannot guess on the wrong side. 
t t 2 



324 AN ESSAY QSect. IL 

Here if any man would choose to name 
other Nations, which have existed, or do 
exist, without any steady contemplation of 
a future state ; I have no doubt of being 
able to maintain, that the happiest classes in 
such Nations, are made happy by the nar- 
rowness, and not by the enlargement, of 
their intellect. 

After the above digression, in order to 
exhibit a systematic indication of man's im- 
mortality in the Law of Nature herself, I 
now return to conclude the moral argu- 
ment drawn from a comparison of the 
TWO ORDERS. — From this last it has 
abundantly appeared, that an ignoble or 
earthly happiness never was designed for 
Man in the perfection of his Nature ; other- 
wise there are different ways in which it 
might, without any breach of general laws, 
have been bestowed upon him. 

Not only is it ascertained, by the re* 



Sect. ON IMMORTALITY. SSS 

searches of Geologists, that the Amimal 
Creation is alterable, — not unaltera- 
ble : but it is obvious to every one, 

that without placing Man under the in- 
stinctive code, — without taking him out 
of the rational system, — there are many 
thousands of his Species so happily consti- 
tuted that without any merit, or exertion, on 
their part y they float on, cheerfully, or con- 
tent, through life; and neither suffer, nor 

iiifiict, any great misery. Therefore, 

surely, all men might have been thus evenly 
constituted, had it been Jit. 

But, as a moral being, trial is fit for 
Man ; preparatory for a higher state : 
And therefore, whenever he would seek his 
happiness by the natural improvement of his 
intellect, if he do not take in the notion of 
an hereafter, and make that his grand 
object, he must find himself humbled, and 
mortified, in his disappointment ; and 
when he looks philosophically back, upon 



326 AN ESSAY [[Sect. II. 

the condition he started from, he finds out 
his error in supposing, that the noble gift 
of Reason was given him for no higher pur* 
pose than an earthly happiness. 

On the other hand, when a view of here- 
after arises ; it may so increase in steadi- 
ness, and magnitude, as can swallow up 
all ordinary, and extraordinary earthly ills; 
and make us rejoice that we were created 
man.— Nay it may do more, much more ; 
for were the indications of a future state 
once established, so as to satisfy the phi- 
losophical World, the opinions of all 
lower classes would gradually be included, 
and fixed; because either directly, or cir- r 
cuitously, the opinions of scientific men 
assuredly find their way into, and biass, the 
thoughts of all ranks in life. — It is a melan- 
choly fact (such is the contagious nature of 
opinion) that a single sneer from a man who 
is thought to be profound, may not only put 
belief to the blush ; but for ever unhinge the 



Sect 11/] ON IMMORTALITY. 327 

principles, and destroy the happiness, of a 
whole company of inexperienced auditors. 
But, were Sceptical poison once neutralised 
by the general consent of the learned, every 
man, high and low, would for his own sake 
apply himself to deserve happiness, in a state 
which he would then be certain awaits 
him ; and, in this way would arise the great- 
est possible diminution of moral and intel- 
lectual evil ; and encrease of sublunary good. 

In taking leave of the subject, I trust it 
may now be claimed with the fullest confi- 
dence, 

FIRST,- — That the proved amount of ani- 
mal happiness diffused over the Earth, is a 
vast manifestation of GOODNESS ; which 
attribute, we find, is often disputed upon a 
view of the Human Species only, and with- 
out proving which, no moral argument can 
exist. 

SECONDLY,— That the result of the 



523 AN ESSAY QSect. It. 

comparison of the TWO ORDERS, is a 
moral indication far beyond the objections 
drawn from general laws ; and therefore, 
of vastly greater extent, or philosophical 
value, than can be furnished by any view of 
the Human Species. 

Now, to show this, was the object of the 
undertaking. 



/ 1 jfp^iS^ * //^ fp4- 

END. 



/v 



A. J 



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